I struggle with the blog articles sometimes, and even with the sessions in BackTo20/20. Some things I really want to convey, just don’t seem to quite make it.
It’s one part of the reason I want to get good at video. There’s quite a bit of nuance to work out. There are the aitactual parts of centimeter and reductions and stimulus and diopters. And then there are the less tangible aspects, like finding active focus and the wide range of emotional aspects that will contribute to you succeeding.
Whenever I try to write about it, it just sounds to vague and hippie. I worry that the quantifiable, tangible, scientifically validated and easily self examined aspects will get lost in the mix. So I try to stay as much on the fact based pieces as possible.
In person I spend a whole lot of time with students, talking about things like the why of eyesight. What do you want to see? What would you do with perfect eyesight?
I like to start from there, and use that as an ongoing thread throughout the journey.
Also in-person, there isn’t any question whether my method works, the Internet factor is out of the equation. In a decade not a single person has ever asked me if this was all some elaborate crackpot scheme. Take any given week with this Web thing though and I get a dozen e-mails questioning things.
It hurts my feelings, to be quite honest.
But then that’s the nature of the delivery system. All anonymous, faceless, e-mails, and of course surrounded by the general noise and conspiratorial, money hungry nature of the Web.
Video. I believe in it. Whatever you watch today rather sucks of course, but I’ve got faith that one day it’ll be what I hope it can be. What do you want your eyes back, for? What are you going to look at, with a diopter less of distortion, artificial focal plane, smudges? What’s it going to be like to be able to find your beach towel after a swim in the ocean, without any contact lenses or glasses?
That’s where it’s at. More on all that, later.
For now, let’s look at some of the other intangibles that Angela, Bruno, and Christian discuss in the forum:
Bruno already has lots of experience on this front.
You don’t know till you know. You have to sit through the uncertainty, ideally with some words of encouragement, until you have that first moment.
And I can say things a thousands times.
Sometimes somebody else has to say it, or just at the right time, the right place. It not being in-person with me, I never know when that moment is. So it’s a matter of luck, or perhaps Christian and Bruno taking the time to comment.
Somewhat unrelated, one of my favorite highly analytical participants posts a little update:
What do you want your eyes back for?
Personal Note: I’m plotting ways to make this a bit more of the front end of the topic. You notice that all my Q&A videos, however clumsily, always start with something other than the Q&A. The idea being, here’s some things to see. See the world, fix your eyes. You need a reason for investing your time and attention.
Part of the challenge for me here, is that I’m self censoring online to a huge degree. In-person, not Internet students are all referrals. They all know somebody who knows somebody, who knows me and improved their eyesight. They know without a shadow of a doubt that my method yields results. They know that I’m living by example, also. When I say, what will you do with your eyes, I’m not coming from behind a desk. It can be a huge inspiration to take a 40 year old barely running RV to Burning Man with me, while talking lenses and focal planes. Leaps of faith and adventure and being fully and entirely outside of routines (and cell reception). Take a week to see the world, have a whole different sense of purpose for the incredible role your eyes play in your life.
But a lot of these stories I feel I can’t share here, because you’d be missing all the context. We’re made up of judgments and simplifications and putting things in categories, all of which isn’t highly conducive to understanding a possibly slightly unconventional sort of individual. Hopefully, time and video and stories, will help converge it all to where you get more of the experience, than just some text on a page.
(Or, just do BackTo20/20, follow the steps, and get your eyes back. Either way…)
Cheers,
-Jake
