I hate wearing glasses.
Maybe it’s because I had such good vision for most of my life that being forced to wear them now is a clear sign of ageing. I’ve got a pair for just walking around, another for using the computer, and a pair of prescription sunglasses. Perhaps I’ve never learned to wear them properly. It seems to me that I’m constantly finding them smudged and covered with fingerprints. It annoys the hell out of me.
How does that happen? I’m careful putting them on and removing them. I’m not aware of ever touching the surface of my glasses, but still they get smudged. I suspect that someone else is secretly touching them, watching to see when I have them cleaned and safely tucked away. That same someone, or their cohorts, also drink my coffee when I’m not looking and use up all of the paper in the printer.
Just because I’m paranoid it doesn’t mean that people aren’t plotting against me. Eyeglass-touching, coffee-siphoning, printer-emptying sons of bitches.
Let’s assume for a moment that there are no conspiracies against me and I am, unconsciously, responsible for it all. I’m the one who smudges my glasses, drinks my coffee, and uses up all of the paper in the printer. It’s unlikely, but let’s explore the possibility that all of these things happen by my direct action, but below the level where I’m aware of it. If that is the case, it makes me wonder about all of the other little and big things that slide by without my taking notice.
I do see them in other people. The little personal ticks and habits, like my daughter twisting her hair, or that guy at the hardware store who chews on his cuticles. Other people, in general, are a mess of habits and behaviors of various degrees of unpleasantness. How much of life is just habit, slipping by, unnoticed, unrecognized? How much time and energy do we waste without even knowing it?
I know it’s possible to become aware of these habits and to slowly change them. To keep my glasses clean I can either start wearing one of those Elizabethan-looking plastic funnel-shaped dog collars or I can substitute a new habit. The creation of a new habit and process, like removing or placing my glasses using both hands, grasping them gently by the ear-pieces, could, over time, make them more smudge-free and longer lasting.
I’m fine, but I think that other people should consider their unconscious habits. If nothing else than to discover the roots of those things that annoy them, and, over time, change those habits and ticks into useful behaviors.
But I can’t spend any more time on this subject right now. Someone has made off with my stapler and I’m betting they have their eyes on my scissors, too.
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I have those same phantoms in my place.