My Glasses, My Heart, Part 1

I wear glasses. I wish I didn't. Not because they're ugly, or inconvenient, or restrictive, which they are: You are always at the end of their tether. No matter how late it is, how tired or distracted or otherwise engaged you are, you can't take them off without making very specific note of where you set them down. Really. It's like parking your car at the airport.

I cannot see the bottom of a lake while I am swimming, nor the stars as I fall asleep under them. Walking in the rain is a bitch, as is coming in from the cold. Snuggling can be problematic (reference the tethering issue).

On the other hand ...

When I look at a Christmas tree with my natural vision, every tiny twinkle light diffuses into a cloud-ball of color, hovering disembodied against an undefined backdrop. This is heaven: lying on the sofa in a dark room, Christmas tree lit, music playing, glasses laid carefully aside.

What do I see when I'm swimming? I lie prone, my cheek resting on the surface as on a pillow. My line of sight is the horizon, the exact point where water touches air. Limited to what is immediately before me, I see this: The horizon is not a straight line, it is a negotiation; it shifts and flows to accommodate the motion of water. It bisects me.

Above the horizon the light is sharp as crystal. The shore is a long green smear, the blue-white plate of sky dissolves into the distance. The light imparts vigor. I am blind to anything smaller than a landscape. No matter, the light itself lives.

Below the horizon all is luminous. The water is infused, the water itself becomes light. On a bright day in clear water, light descends to the depths. You can follow it down. Sometimes I walk out as far as I can, wearing my glasses, look down to see the bottom. Then I walk back to shore, lay my glasses carefully aside, and swim out, blind. I am not in the dark, I am feeling my way in the light.

These are the two aspects of the horizon: enlivened and enlightened.

When I remove my glasses, there is no precision, no definition. Objects lose their independent identities; all melt, thaw, resolve. Shape and differentiation fade to abstractions. The loss of the particular undoes logic, language, thought. In the world of my natural vision, there are only impressions.

With my natural vision, I see the world as it is, without a manmade, distorting lens. Perhaps you are blinded by your vision. Go to the doctor; ask him to remove the lenses from your eyes. Then you will see: We live in a diaphanous world.

* * *

Lately I have been troubled by the problem of war, or rather, the impossibility of peace. Now here's a new thread: Perhaps our problem is clear vision.

How can we see peace when we see only the particular, the clear definition of this thing and that? Clear vision gives rise to specificity, and specificity to difference, and difference to war. The clarity of vision is at the root. we must become a little bit blind.

For purely pragmatic reasons, nearsightedness could give peace a big boost: If we were all banging blindly about, it would be very difficult to wage an effective war.

Vision determines action. when you see the world as a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you see the world as a bomb, everything looks like a target.

What if, looking at a bomb, your poorly tuned eyes registered a big, fluffy ball? What if the words of every religious text blurred into one dark smear on the page?