Progressive Lenses and the Self

Is there a tradeoff between seeing and being seen?

I was on a Zoom call yesterday, and faced a dilemma I haven’t managed to solve yet. What is the ideal angle of the laptop screen to me, given two conditions: a) my bad eyes, for which I wear spectacles with progressive lenses; and b) my double chin, which I would like to hide.

Those of you with perfect eyesight and no empathy might well ask: What is a progressive lens? Well, it’s an invention for when you have problems both seeing into the distance and seeing what’s near you, which is typically an issue while reading a book. In the good old days, we’d have regular glasses for distant viewing and reading glasses for, well, reading. The progressive lens is a miraculous modern invention by which different focal distances are seamlessly combined into one lens, so that you can wear just one pair of spectacles.

The top part of the lens supports looking ahead into the distance. The bottom part of the lens supports reading from a book or laptop screen. But if there is a Zoom call on that laptop screen and you have a double chin, you are screwed.

Here is why. When I am on a Zoom call, if I want to see everyone’s faces — and therefore their expressions — I have to tilt my face upwards so I can see through the bottom half of my progressive lenses. But this highlights my double chin, and thus reveals to the world that I am fat and ugly. (The world knows this anyway, but to accept that is like accepting mortality, in which case, why live?)

I have a sit-stand desk, and have tried changing the height of the desk relative to my face. I have tried changing the angle of the laptop screen. Nothing works. If I present my best single-chin face, everyone on the call is a blur to me. If I make sure I can see everyone clearly, they can see my double chin clearly.

Clearly this is a problem.

The obvious answer is to not enable video. For my writing course, my rule is that everyone must have video disabled. I give a sensible and correct reason for this — but well, now you know.

The geek in me has contemplated the Upside-Down Progressive Lens, in which the top half of the lens is optimised for reading and hiding extra chins. While this is a clever idea, I can’t imagine a situation in which I would use the bottom half of the lens to look into the distance, unless I am given to walking outdoors while looking at the sky, but actually not looking at the sky but looking straight ahead. Bad startups think like this: invent something cool and try to figure out a use for it.

A separate pair of reading glasses is one of two sensible solutions. The other one is cutting back on carbs and exercising every day — but I’m Bengali.

This Is Not Just a Zoom Call Problem

Just as how you do the small things is how you do the big things, it is also true that the small questions are the big questions. There is a binary at play when I am on a zoom call: either I focus on seeing others clearly, or on projecting myself well. Both are impossible. It is not like this for everyone — but my eyesight and sloth combine to make it a problem for me.

Similarly, in life, are we too eager to project ourselves to actually sit back and make the effort of seeing others clearly?

One of my favourite quotes is from Stephen Covey:

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

To see others, we need to listen to understand. But if we just care about projecting a version of ourselves, we listen to respond. One is an act of ego, and comes at the cost of the other.

The fundamental human anxiety is the anxiety of how other people perceive us. Thus, many conversations become battles of egos. People are listening to respond, not to understand. We are the main character; everyone else is a prop; no else has an interior life — or at least, an interior life that matters to us.

Is it the case that the more mindspace we devote to projecting, the less we have left over to devote to understanding? Is this a zero-sum game? What are we to do?

I don’t have an answer to this problem. I try to listen to understand. (My podcast has helped with this.) I try to treat other people as an end in themselves, and not a means to an end. But am I fooling myself? Is my attempted repudiation of ego itself an act of hubris?

I resolved the Zoom problem of Sunday by keeping my chin down. I didn’t like myself for doing this — but I couldn’t fight myself either.

Life Lessons

Episode 400 of The Seen and the Unseen released today. Shruti Rajagopalan joined me to get me to reveal the life lessons I have learnt in the eight years of the show. I also recommended books, films and music I love, and read out some poems. While reading out one of them, I burst into tears. Shruti stood awkwardly at my shoulder saying ‘there there, there there.’ Then she read out that poem instead. We cut out the crying from the episode, but here’s the poem.

Also, Ajay Shah and I have launched a course called Life Lessons. I will send out another post about it tomorrow. In the meantime, read about it, and sign up. Like with everything else I do, I will put my heart and soul into it.

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Illlustrations by Simahina.

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