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Dec. 22, 2006 In the mid-seventies, I found my eyesight beginning to decline, and though I resisted wearing glasses for a couple of years, I finally surrendered. From around 1976 right up till earlier this year, I always carried glasses for reading, and most of the time, wore them all day long. I got prescription glasses two or three times, but I found non-prescription reading glasses just as effective. I also carried a magnifying glass for those moments when I was in a really dark place or had to read tiny print. I spend hours every day reading, studying and writing, so all the optical paraphernalia were a constant nuisance. For some reason, I have a tendency to lose or break glasses frequently, so I was always hassling with that too. Now that most of my reading is done online, I find that webpage illumination usually makes it unnecessary for me to wear glasses. Nonetheless, all this time I have faithfully carried and worn my glasses as I sat before the monitor, generally peering over the tops of the lenses. Then, two or three times I forgot my glasses, but decided to start my session anyway, and see how I could do. I had no problem whatsoever, though I usually changed the size of the text to Large on the Toolbar dropdown. I could read it at normal size too, but why strain myself unnecessarily, when with a click of the mouse I can read comfortably? Moreover, why should I bother reading paper books and newspapers at all, when I can get virtually everything I want online. Newspapers from all over the world, in a whole spectrum of languages, can be found online, and entire books can be read at the Gutenberg Project and elsewhere. Then there’s Wikipedia, with its million articles in English. I could spend hours and years, and I probably will, if I live that long, reading those fascinating articles. Also, if I wanted to buy a book in English, I would probably have to pay to remail it from my Los Angeles street address at Mail Boxes, Etc. So a $25 book would cost me $75, and then I’d have to tote it once it arrived, or throw it away. I do have a few books in Spanish and Portuguese, but books in these parts do not measure up to American standards for content and presentation. Anyway, a couple of months ago, though I continued to carry my glasses with me regularly, I stopped putting them on when I logged in at the local cyber café here in Buenos Aires. Finally, about a month ago, I stopped carrying and using them altogether, and although I do do work at home every morning with a small English paperback dictionary that I’m translating into an artificial language, I’ve found that I don’t need the glasses even for that. It’s as if my eyesight has reverted to what it was years ago. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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