What does having 20/20 Vision in 2020 mean for you?
Perhaps you are seeing more clearly in Covid. And now that you’re more awake, you’re wondering: now what? I have some provocations that are helping me move forward. Maybe they will be helpful for you, too. We’re all perfectly imperfect in this moment.
According to the fine folks at the American Optometrists Association, the definition of 20/20 Vision is… not at all what I thought it was going to say. The part that really snatched my wig right off is enlarged below:
Having 20/20 vision does not necessarily mean you have perfect vision. 20/20 vision only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance.
Well if that’s not an apt metaphor for where we stand—now past the half way mark of the year of 2020—then I don’t know what is.
There are no shortage of memes and articles being written about the irony and poetry of the year that has been horrifying and instructive all at once.
There are also wonderful, inspired organizations leveraging 20/20 in their missions. There are also organizations who believe things I don’t agree with that use 20/20 in their rally cries.
(:author inserts examples to make her point:)
(:author asks you to remember these 4 examples, they will come up again:)
So back to the wise folks at American Optometrists Association. They went ahead and dropped this poetic gem that got me thinking further:
Other important vision skills, including peripheral awareness or side vision, eye coordination, depth perception, focusing ability and color vision, contribute to your overall visual ability.
To recap, here’s what I am taking away:
- Having 20 / 20 Vision isn’t about perfection. Rather, it “…only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance.”
- Being good at other things outside of what’s considered “perfect” or “right” is equally important to seeing clearly.
So gentle reader, I posit you to consider:
- What ‘perfection’ are you asking of yourself that is coming at the cost of your rich and equally important awarenesses, coordinations, perceptions, and focusing abilities?
- What ‘perfection’ are you asking of others that is coming at the cost of the expression of their rich and equally important awarenesses, coordinations, perceptions, and focusing abilities?
Back to the examples, as promised:
Diversified meme sources improve your vision
Gentle reader, some more prompts for your consideration:
- Which meme accounts are you following?
- What are you learning from these memes?
- Are you taking on new sources and viewpoints, or are you reinforcing your existing views?
- Are you dismissive of other view points that you see reinforced, or are you open to engaging in dialogue? Do you seek understanding? Do you give space for context? Have you found common ground?
Talking about the root word and science behind what feels like a recent phenomenon with my team at Nimbly (where we meme hard), a few things came to the surface that might also be a helpful lens to bring as you ask yourself about your vision for yourself, for others, for the world.
First, the high level Wikipedia definition:
Memetics is the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesn’t necessarily imply a concept is factual.[1] Critics contend the theory is “untested, unsupported or incorrect”.[2] It has been labelled as pseudoscience by many scholars, making memetics unable to establish itself as a recognised research programme.[3]
And then for some sweet “new developments”, further down the page on Wikipedia:
Research methodologies that apply memetics go by many names: Viral marketing, cultural evolution, the history of ideas, social analytics, and more.
Many of these applications do not make reference to the literature on memes directly but are built upon the evolutionary lens of idea propagation that treats semantic units of culture as self-replicating and mutating patterns of information that are assumed to be relevant for scientific study.
For example, the field of public relations is filled with attempts to introduce new ideas and alter social discourse. One means of doing this is to design a meme and deploy it through various media channels. One historic example of applied memetics is the PR campaign conducted in 1991 as part of the build-up to the first Gulf War in the United States.[32]
Again, this is an opportunity as you think about your periphery vision and the periphery visions of those around you to ask:
- What are you absorbing and what are you missing?
- Who benefits from the messages you absorb and reinforce? Who loses?
Things that nourish your soul improve your vision (examples above: Feminism, Oprah, Health)
As I shared in my last post, there has never been a more critical moment in our lives to find bright spots; to find what sparks joy; and to do what it takes so we may settle in and sustain long battles on nearly every front.
Going to Oprah’s 20/20 Vision tour in Brooklyn with my dear friend Sarah was the gift of a lifetime. To drink from the font of wisdom and realness put forth by Oprah and Michelle Obama continues to sustain my soul in its darkest Covid moments.
- What is sustaining you in these times? Honor and repeat.
It’s important to sustain yourself right now, because so much depends on your healthy, awake, and plugged in mind and body.
We need you and we need each other like we’ve never needed one another before.
Re-posting some gems from the piece I mentioned above (“A Blessing for Job Seekers in Covid”):
- What feels like play for you? Do more of it.
- What makes the hair on the back of your neck rise? Find more excuses to engage in this activity.
- Who makes you light up when they walk into the room? Be with them in person or virtually, more.
- What smells make you relax? Buy them and have them on hand near your bed, your home office, your backpack, your purse.
- When’s the last time you brought back napping and baths like you were a toddler? Give yourself permission to melt into relaxation like you’re a kid again.
- Walk slower. Especially at sunrise and sunset.
- Eat outside.
- Find drinks that enliven you and don’t extract — more electrolytes (e.g coconut water, Pedialyte) and probiotics (e.g. kombucha). Less caffeine and alcohol. But everything in moderation is also a form of self care ;)
Thoughtfully engaging in things you don’t believe in improves your vision
Herein lies the most controversial thing I’ve ever put out on the Internet (and this is coming from someone who has had her personal life splashed up on Gawker, talked openly about IVF egg freezing, and still has these embarrassing 4:3 aspect ratio slides on an old SlideShare account… so I hope the gentle reader is leaning in for some hot tea at this point).
What’s needed now more than ever is not disdain for the other side.
It is compassion.
It is dialogue.
It is thoughtful engagement.
It is radical empathy.
—
As I think about what vision in 2020 is for me… it is not about perfection, nor is it about what is right in front of me.
It is about stretching beyond what is comfortable into deeply uncomfortable spaces. And spending real time there. With people that don’t think like me. With people that don’t look like me.
What does this look like? Back to the final example above, here’s why I selected it:
- Googling around for my 20/20 piece, I found the blog American Immigration Reform by Bob Dane (article included above).
- I am going to spend some time reading Bob Dane’s pieces and make some notes with questions, like I used to with my teachers in school.
- And then when I am ready I will reach out to Bob to have some thoughtful dialogue. And perhaps engage in an old school debate, where both sides respect one another and spar healthily to better each other’s ideas (not attack the holder of them).
- Or perhaps Bob Dane and I co-author a piece together here on Medium.
- And maybe we both learn something about each other’s perspectives. And we bring that empathy and understanding back to our respective communities. And we don’t yell or post nasty comments.
I am not sure how Bob Dane will respond or if he will respond at all. But I know that I am hopeful that with courage and action, I will bring some change to both of us in the process. Talk to you soon Bob, I have some reading to do!
—
Leslie Bradshaw is a graduate of the University of Chicago where she spent most of her days studying gender, sexuality, race, and economics when she wasn’t memorizing 10,000 Latin words and declensions on a stair stepper… or drinking martinis and smoking cigars indoors back when it was legal with her best friend Greg.
