The reflection in the screen of the laptop looked a lot like me. Or at least, like the me I have become. My maternal grandmother once told one of my sisters when looking at a collection of her yearly school photos that she changed so much with each photo she looked like a different person in every year. I’ve pretty much always looked like myself until recently. The once-black beard, started the first day of college, is now mostly white. The hair on my head, what’s left of it, is salt and pepperish. It is different enough that a friend whom I had not seen for a while stopped as she entered the house so that she could take a new mental photo to update her internal directory. I’ve gotten used to the change. Even the glasses that I wear when reading no longer surprise me when I catch a glimpse of them in a mirror.
Regarding the glasses, they took some getting used to. I first learned I needed reading glasses when I stepped up to a podium to deliver an after-dinner speech at a scholarship recognition dinner. That’s hardly an opportune time for such new revelations. The banquet was held in a newly constructed room outfitted with the latest technology, but no one thought to put a decent light over or attached to the speaker’s stand. I looked down at my notes that night and could not make out a single word clearly. Initially, it felt like an emergency. Instead of “Is there a doctor in the house?”, I wanted to shout “Anyone have a pair of readers to spare?” Fortunately, I knew my talk well enough that no one else noticed; but I came away that night with a new appreciation of the value of light.
Since that occasion, I make it a point to keep a pair of glasses handy. There is probably one stashed in every room of the house by this point. Seeing the reflection today reminded me of those first few weeks when I needed to don the glasses in public. Whenever I reached for my shirt pocket, I furtively glanced around to see if anyone was watching. After years of 20/20 vision, needing assistance seemed like a shadow being cast on my capabilities. I don’t know why but it felt a bit shameful. Of course, it was not. If my colleagues noticed at all, they were too polite to comment. For a while after that, whenever I caught a glance of myself wearing glasses, it was almost as though I was seeing someone else. All I could see were the glasses. All I could think was how unlike me I looked when wearing them. They looked huge – oversized – so much so that I couldn’t see anything but those glasses. In retrospect, what I can see is it was kind of ridiculous.
I listened to a friend trying to recount his day’s activities recently. He struggled to remember past the last thing he had done that morning. It had been a good experience within his very full day. As he attempted to reconstruct a list of his other activities, he was drawing a blank except for the one thing. He commented that some things are like bright stars – they captivate your attention. They dominate the sky. So much so that it is difficult to see all the other also impressive lights surrounding it. I immediately felt the truth of that statement deep in my soul. Like staring at the sun briefly or reacting to a camera flash, (or locking in on those ridiculous glasses?), your field of vision is overwhelmed. Like Sirius or other first-magnitude stars, proximity or luminosity give them an advantage in being seen and grabbing our attention. Once they take center stage, their intensity causes surrounding objects to appear dimmer, even seeming to fade or disappear altogether.
When we talk about life events or activities rather than stars, we have a similar experience. These dominating “lights,” be they conversations, events, or other experiences, can have an overwhelming effect. They overfocus our attention on a single thing so that little else can be noticed or seem to matter. It is granted more power and influence than it deserves. It exaggerates the truth we think we know, preventing us from factoring in other important perspectives into our understanding of the matter.
For instance, when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started, I hoped for a quick, peaceful resolution. I prayed for it. I read headlines each day. Front page news was easy to find. Now, time has passed. The bright light of that conflict that once dominated my attention has waned, replaced by the US and Iran war. I doubt much has improved in the Russia-Ukraine skirmish. It is still there. Still interrupting the peace. Still needing resolution, but the news has mostly moved on from it. It is much more difficult to see; much easier to ignore or forget – unless you are one so close, so disrupted, that this remains stubbornly in a priority position of your daily contemplations and frustrations.
The bright lights that capture our attention are a bit like a glitter ball with its many reflections, or perhaps imitating a rubber ball’s ability to ricochet off the walls, mesmerizing as it moves. They may come seemingly out of nowhere. They may well be helpfully illuminating. Educating us. Enlightening us. Deepening our understanding of the moment or something even more grand.
But the captivating lights can also overwhelm us. Blind us. Distract us from other necessary and worthy tasks. Preoccupy us so that we fail to notice the other things that are being overshadowed. Left unchecked, they can skew the universe. One narrow, dominating scenario can be the ultimate filter through which all things are interpreted. The past is reinterpreted from the perspective of this bright star. The future is anticipated according the possible scenarios that seem logical because of how the light illumines or even casts shadows. If focus becomes preoccupation or even obsession, can we ever seen anything clearly again or give ample space in our view of things so that a fuller, richer context can be considered? It is often while tangled in the web we have woven and the fixation it ushers in that we lose sight of things that once mattered but which now we cannot see.
I find that on some occasions when life edges toward the overwhelming side of the spectrum, it helps simply to close my eyes for a few moments. Breaking the visual contact and relaxing into the darkness allows the eyes to refocus and the mind to reset. Then perhaps the lesser lights will return to our field of vision. The page ten headlines may still get the attention they deserve, and we would stay engaged with the wider field of need and opportunity that is the daily existence of the masses. Oh yeah – and keep a spare pair of readers handy, because you never know what kind of light life will send you way.
