Vision vs. Clarity

Visibility was low and my eyes ached due to the wind and the pummeling of torrential tiny bits of ice which mercilessly fell from the heavens.

My glasses fogged when I opened the front door and a wave of heat greeted me.

I carelessly took them off, set them aside and forgetfully sought the affection of my now long gone dog, or rather the dog I lost in my previous separation. This was a forgetful mishap which only furthered my already blurred state by watering my eyes and adding saltine droplets to those already running down my face.

I gained clarity on how much love I have for her and what an important role she played in my life the previous year. She was my best friend and a constant source of love, solace and comfort in a more often than not gloomy experience. I miss her overwhelmed excitement when I entered, her enthusiasm for my affection, my naps and walks with her and burring my face in her coat when I rather have hid it from the world. Her absence causes a great void in my heart which I pretend not to be there and act blind to.

Yet, she alone is not to blame for my failed clarity. My eyes are so tired as of late. A steady stream of sleepless, nightmare ridden nights, stress, sorrow, and computer screens alike have all aided in the burdening of these so called windows to the soul.

However, other more degrading culprits are also to blame for this blurred perception that is mine to own.

Pride for one is a gossamer veil that often gets in the way. It is a double edge sword of sorts, with neither edge in actuality aiding me. One edge hides truth and emotions from others. The other prevents me from grasping the "genuine freedom and liberation [which] can only be achieved [once] our fundamental ignorance, our habitual misapprehension of the nature of reality, is totally overcome", as the Dali Lama so eloquently was stated.

Also great cataracts to my reality are pain and its companion loneliness. They often blind me of the blessings I posses and of a world which surrounds me perhaps looking towards me for guidance, fraternity, inspiration, solace or that of a simple welcoming smile which bids good morning.

I often find my self in a crowded room, perhaps with many who might desire my attention and affections, and yet, feel completely distraught and alone. I see in faces the wanton needs of similarly broken souls seeking to self-medicate their pain of mortal coil via the lustful short lived alleviations of carnal toil.

I see self motivated guile, interest, subjectification, objectification, pretentious antics, false fraternization, and other ills. Alas, judgment too dazzles the eyes from baring witness to the elevated states of tolerance, compassion and seeing past the potential false notions of reality.

Time burdens the orbits. Life however, disillusions, creates doubt, and teaches lessons we never grasp the full lessons of and hence we in turn build walls which we pretend to be fortresses.

We place stone after stone around us, tightly, with mortar barely visible, displaying the exactitude and precision of Aztec or Egyptian masons and then find ourselves confided to the nearsightedness of these walls.

They become myopic prisons of our own making for fortresses are intended to protect but incidentally also divide.

Noticing these truths however do not make one blind, it makes them clearer. It helps them grow, helps them see not just themselves but the reflections of self in others.

And so, twenty-one days from now I get laser surgery on my eyes and will in fact be rendered sightless for a day or two and have no idea who will hold my hand and escort me home or how it is that someone of my self assumed qualities could find themselves in said predicament.

It seems that despite my blurred and failing vision, life in fact gets ever clearer, but even in the impeding promise of 20/20 sight; I realize that clarity and vision are not one in the same.