Eyesight

I recently watched a video where a man spent an hour a day staring off into the distance without his glasses for a week. At the end of the week, his vision had improved substantially, and he concluded that doing so could reverse some myopia. I wish he had come to that conclusion sooner, because I had just spent 15 minutes burning my retinas in with devilish blue light watching his little video.

Myopic is a word I had only previously heard from that one Bo Burnham song with the sock. That’s just a fun little aside. I’m actually sat outside right now writing this after having stared off in the distance without my glasses for a bit. It’s clear my nearsightedness is the direct result of spending 90% of my days for the past 10 years looking down the barrel of the Eyesight Killing Gun that is the Screen. My life is not “like” a video game. My life IS a video game. I am my own Mario. And this Mario has to wear glasses.

This whole thing got me thinking: If the problem is that all the screens in my life are too close to my eyes, why don’t I just push them away?

I don’t, of course, mean that I would push screens out of my life in any capacity. That’s ridiculous, my screen time isn’t a problem, back off. Stop. Just stop. I have another proposal to run past you.

Initially I thought, well, what if I stood very far from my monitor, got really long extension cords for my mouse and keyboard, and just mounted some binoculars to my head, like a VR headset. But I quickly realized that one’s head would have to be fixed in place very still for that to work. Any slight neck movement and you’d be looking at the wall beside the monitor. WHICH ISN’T COOL OR INTERESTING. Also I’m not entirely sure this has the same effect on your eyes as looking at something distant without binoculars. So scrap it. Okay? It was a stupid idea. It was stupid. Whatever.

I think back to my formative years. I am reminded of when I bought my first computer. I saved up for all the parts, bought it, and didn’t have any money leftover for a monitor. My solution? Set my computer up in the basement, and use the TV as my monitor. Boom. This probably slowed my eyesights decline just a little bit. But I have a better idea:

Movie Theater

Have you ever watched a movie? Those screens they have in there are no joke. If you laid that silver screen out on the floor, it would be one hell of a rug. Or tarp more so. That’s how big these things are. And another thing: you can see them from FAR away! Go to a movie theater with a tape measure. Measure from the screen to the furthest seats. FEET GALORE. Probably like 100 feet maybe even more. Gaming on the big screen could be one way to heal your eyesight back to health. Something to think about.

Love, Bitzel