Earlier this month, having admitted a weakness for obituaries, I’m sure you won’t be hard pressed to believe I’m not up on popular culture. I read the fascinating stories of dead people and leave popular culture for others to enjoy. Truly though, people simply don’t know what they are missing. I do though. I do know what I‘m missing because it is all around me and I get glimpses of it simply because I have a social media presence.
I take the art of TV, movies, theatre and such seriously. I know it is great stuff, I just make mental lists of the popular things I will eventually get around to watching. It’s 2019 and I’ve finally started watching The Wire. I’m a Marylander. It’s taken me 17 years to watch a critically acclaimed show based in my home state’s biggest city. Breaking Bad is still on my list, although my colleague Joe has given me some reservations about that show.
Regardless, at the rate I’m going, it will be 2032 before I watch it. I choose obituaries and crossword puzzles for my free time. I’m not sure if that makes me awkward or really likable? But I miss a lot, and because of the few minutes a day I spend on social media, I know I’m missing a lot. For instance, Birdbox. The Netflix original with Sandra Bullock. (I really like her and I think we’d make fast friends, she’d dig that I read obits.)
The blindfold piqued my interest. So I asked my children about it and I think they told me the characters couldn’t look at something or they would die. This got me thinking. My mind began wandering as it often does. How could sight be a bad thing, we at GV2020 work day in and day out to get more eyeglasses on peoples faces in order to provide clear sight. And here is this really interesting concept that sight could be bad for someone. It could mean death…which, in our reality, we know the opposite to be true.
In fact, the lack of sight can mean death.
We give sight, and this movie is about survival without it. In fact, it’s about the necessary loss of it to stay alive. The irony. We are constantly thinking about the benefits of sight, and how a person has a better life with it. Sight is good. It’s helpful. Losing it, and living with the hurdles that come with the loss of that sight, is extremely difficult.
Could you imagine not having the prescription eyeglasses you have to read, see distance, soothe your eyes while using a computer, or make night driving easier? Is your vision bad enough that you would have to stop your profession…or would you? Would survival mode kick in and would you continue doing what it is you do, just with more danger attached to it.
I remember at trip to Mexico to distribute eyeglasses. Our team chartered a bus for trips to different neighborhoods. On the third day, our bus driver hopped in line. He had a -4 prescription. He was driving us around, and everyone else on his chartered bus (probably for years) with terrible vision. Because he didn’t have a choice. He needed to work and as his vision declined he continued to drive nonetheless.
The danger was not lost on us.
Let’s be thankful we don’t have to blindfold ourselves to stay alive, and that we have access to basic eye care so that our daily lives are not impeded by the lack of clear vision. And for me, I am nearing the age where I’ll need reading glasses just to enjoy the obits.
#dialsnapwear
#USee
Sincerely,
Rebecca Guay
Global Vision 2020
Director of Communications