Looking at the World Through Prescription Lenses

Frequent visits to the optometrist or ophthalmologist frequently reveal the need for corrective lenses. I have been going for so many years and have had to have so many corrections, it has become somewhat routine and predictable. No visit, in these years, has occurred without some tweaking of the lens to provide sharper vision. My case is aggravated by having had a genetically influenced condition called Cariticonus. It is a condition which simply understood means cone shaped cornea. It resulted in three cornea transplants. More, to the point, it contributes to distorted and progressively impaired vision.

There is another perspective on all of this, a parable or analogy at least. Our points of view often require correction. It takes examination to determine how skewed our vision is on persons, issues, attitudes, events, opinions, and so on. Often, just because we see something one way our expectation is that everyone will or does see it our way. While this may not be described as blindness on any given topic, it might at least be myopic.

Examining our viewpoints is a worthy practice. Often our perspectives are influenced by distortions, cloudiness, double vision, blurred sight. These common conditions affect how we see everything external and how we internalize much of what we take in. Further, we often are subject to getting only part of the picture. A few years back I suffered a stroke in my left eye, resulting in my having very limited and non correctable vision in that eye. All the work for my taking in what I see is now dependent on my right eye.

Corrections are futile, thus if my impaired vision tries to do the translating of what is in front of me, it may need rechecking or verifying with a closer look or the aid of someone else. Signs are particularly hard to see at certain distances when only having half vision.

One’s viewpoint is influenced by how well we can see, by how our internal makeup translates what we see, by the sharpness or dullness of our ability to see. Periodic checkups are necessary to sharpen our perceptions, to examine our viewpoint, to digest what we take in and how we explain what we see to others. Imagine being blind and having to depend on the rest of your senses for your perception of the world, how would you likely “see” what you “see?” Even sighted people depend on others to help us make out what we absorb with our eyes. All of us require the benefit of other viewpoints to help us take in the world.