Last week I got LASIK surgery – my eyesight was not horrible, but it was not great. Without glasses I could not drive, for example.

The morning before the surgery, the doc checked my eyes, and put some dilating solution in them. The dilation effect lasted a while, and I couldn’t see anything up close for an afternoon. This meant no computers, no reading.

I returned to work after the pre-op unable to sit at my desk and do anything useful. Instead I spent the day talking to people.

Minor epiphany.

I got updates on what they were doing, had short discussions I had intended to have but never had time to have. I watched people work from a distance. I listened to their conversations with each other. With my dilated eyes, I was able to get a feel for what was going on at Sifteo in a way my inbox could never tell me. My near-sightedness was gone; the only things I could see clearly were far away.

Holy metaphors, batman.