I have a distinct memory of the very first time I placed a pair of prescription glasses on my face.

I was about 10 years old, and had needed glasses for some time.  With the prompting of a decent and observant educator, my Mom took me to Sears optical. (“Sears’s,” as my grandmother used to call it.  We Pittsburghers tend to make possessive any store name, as if there is an actual Giant Eagle at the helm of the grocery store, or a dude named K-Mart at the ready when one cannot find whatever cheap shit needs to be found.)

I needed glasses.

After the requisite time for creating said glasses, we returned and I put the glasses on my face in the dimmed, tranquil office of the optometrist.  Sure, there was a difference, but nothing amazing.

We walked out of the office and into a fluorescent, light drenched, color-saturated, maximally contrasted retail maze filled with other active humans with shiny, four-wheeled carts full of distractingly diverse items.

I know I tend toward hyperbole, but this is was the first moment in my life that I experienced hyperbole as an actual thing.  People of a certain age will remember the first time they watched “The Wizard of Oz,” and the scene where Dorothy, along with the entire freaking world, saw Technicolor for the first time.  People of a younger generation might recall watching “The Matrix,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” or perhaps “Inception,” which blasted open some untouched portion of the visual cortex and delivered a thing never before seen or even conceptually possible.

Imagine that…but like YOU actually are Dorothy or Neo, like a dream in which you become that character experiencing the thing that is currently cracking open brains on the other side of the screen…and you can then understand my first moments with those prescription glasses staring at richness, depth, and clarity like I had NEVER experienced.

I ran into things.  I over-reached with my right hand for my left hand. My heart rate rose, pupils dilated…which didn’t help, sweat formed in cracks and crevices.  My brain, in the process of acclimating, was awash with whatever neuro-chemicals cause panic, astonishment, worry, and epiphany.

What does that have to do with this podcast?

Quite a bit actually.

Have a listen.