EPISODE 25: The Vision Thing
In this seemingly tangential podcast, I further explain the use of the sensory tune-up game, and talk about how every game we play has both diagnostic and therapeutic properties. I speak a little bit of the history of Vision Therapy, the improvement of eyesight without corrective lenses, tell my own story of recent radical vision improvement, and offer up a method for those living in a similar context as myself; i.e. improving their health, changing their lifestyle, gaining self-clarity.
Of course all this relates to Evan Gardner’s “learning how to learn game” methodology in a wonderful way. I hope you’ll listen on in; whether you have 20/20 vision, or very blurry vision, you can still learn to continuously improve the clarity of your vision so that one day they may call you “hawkeye”!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Hey Willem
Thanks for this. I have a similar history of late-onset myopia and only started wearing glasses toward the end of my teens. Funny you should mention inner city schools, as I was also struggling with a similarly disorienting ‘transplant’ to the one you describe - from posher, more middle-class suburban surroundings to decidedly meaner streets - at the time, and I eventually recognised that, along with the physical ‘disorder’, on a different level I needed these little squares of glass, or something, any barrier to hide behind in everyday social interactions. So it delighted me to hear that somebody else understands this as a valid, storied reaction to unavoidable circumstances - our bodies self-preserving by dulling sight to things that cause us great pain to see.
I think there’s a whole topic of ‘rewilding eyesight’ in here. The Wikepedia article on myopia comes with this tantalising paragraph:
… and links to an old BBC article where we hear that:
As well as benefits possibly linked to the Paleo diet (and, having managed to wean myself off milk, I still eat way too much white bread and other grain-based produce), I’ve found that fox-walking also profoundly affects the way I look at things: without the *clump* *clump* *clump* of heels going down and sending shockwaves all up the body it seems my eyes don’t have to put a renewed effort after every footfall to readjust their focus. This leaves them free to wander in a way that allows a steadier kind of attention on my surroundings. It’s like I can look at an object and feel it pull me forward towards it on a constant, steady thread of curiosity and through layers of progressive satisfaction before spotting the next thing down the trail: a whole new way of being drawn through the landscape. Perhaps this could tell us something more about how to relate to that landscape so we don’t turn it into something from which we have to forever avert our gaze (and something about how this sorry, sensorially deprived state of affairs came about in the first place…)
This stuff excites me. Your idea of a journey from Myopic to Hawk-eye reminds me of something I got from reading one of Ran’s old essays - that we, as members of a culture that has purposefully forgotten everything about what it’s like to be a human being, have the delicious opportunity to relearn - in full consciousness and from the ground up - all the wonderful potentialities of our species: like replaying our own evolution!
Right, that’s enough for now. Off into the hills with me - England’s skies haven’t looked so blue in a long time
Ian
March 16th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Thanks for the wonderful comment Ian - great links!
I mentioned in the podcast, that this particular vision training method probably best served those with a similar lifestyle to mine, for the exact reasons you mention; diet plays a role, stress plays a role, following your heart plays a role, actually wanting to see plays a role.
I don’t think I mentioned in the podcast - I’ve also seen a connection between a willingness to grieve wounds on my part (tears), and the ability of my eyes to recover from chronic dryness (lack of tears). Everything seems connected, working this muscle works that muscle over there, bringing back unexpected gifts of ability, capacity, strength.
All in all, an exhilarating, terrifying, life-affirming adventure. Nice to have your company! Say high to those blue English skies for me.
p.s. I used to have a myspace headline which read “America’s Foremost Indoorsman”. Funny to see your “rugged indoorsman” moniker! Too cool.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
No problem
Interesting. I’ve been saving the Big Grief Project for a while now, and still have a strong tendency to power through my wounds, sometimes without even acknowledging them until after (a large, weepy blister still on the palm of my hand a week after somewhat overenthusiastic use of a digging stick attests to this…) ‘Dry eyes’ was my first complaint to the optometrist back in the day, not ‘blurred vision’ or ‘lack of focus’. Maybe I was trying to tell him that I’d not been able to cry since around the age of 12. But the message didn’t get across: grief doesn’t sell prescription lenses!
Haha - nice coincidence. I’m getting the feeling it’s time to move on from that though - narrows down my options a bit, doncherknow
Wilco on the skies, though they’d clouded up a bit by the time I got round to posting that.
cheers
Ian
March 19th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Nice one! I enjoyed it, it’s inspiring me to get back into exploring vision improvement.
A couple of things.
I think the looking-through-eyelashes thing runs on the same principle as pinhole glasses: it cuts out extraneous light rays to make the image that much sharper. I used to do the same thing by making a pinhole with my almost-closed fist.
“What are the limits of human vision?” Dr. Bates reported a girl who was able to see the moons of Jupiter with her naked eye! But when confronted with a school subject she hated (I think it was math), she became myopic.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I agree with your lashes/pinhole theory; non-muscular glare reduction rocks, however one does it. Squinting, however, blows chunks. Bad stuff.
A toast to seeing the moons of Jupiter, in the not too far off future! Exciting. It still makes me laugh; as the Tradition Chinese Medicine types say:
Long life to the eyeballs!
March 20th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
[…] Listen to the podcast at The College of Mythic Cartography. […]
May 7th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
has anyone had any contact with Brian S. recently? I was an acquaitance of his back in MN.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:31 am
jeffro:
You know, last I heard about him, things didn’t sound so good - that from several years back, though. I hope his circumstances turned around. In the meanwhile, if I hear something new, I’ll post it here. He definitely played a huge role in making my vision improvement possible.
Thanks again Brian, wherever you find yourself.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Glad to hear about your vision improvement. I helped with the initial marketing materials. Last time he contacted me was from the MT state system. Interesting thread you have here.