Sometimes I look at this blank screen and wonder what I am going to write about.

News happens, so it isn't quite the same. With news writing, I find out what happened and write about it. That's not always easy, but at least I'm not looking for a topic. When the lack of inspiration appears to be at its worst, I usually read our other columnists for ideas (not that I only read them when in trouble). Kay seems to get a lot of mileage out of her garden and past experiences with travel and life, but I have so little experience in life and gardening, I find that route impossible. I could note that as a lad I worked in my parents' garden and planted a few pumpkins and hot peppers, but that's not enough for a story.

Meanwhile, T.J. writes about his pets and his unique perspective on life. I don't even have a goldfish.

They both write about what is uniquely them. So I decided to look a little deeper at the subject and try to find something that is really unique about me. That required a bit of introspection. Introspection has been one of my favorite things for a long time, but really coming to realizations hasn't been my specialty.

The noble pursuit of Socrates and Plato usually ends up twisted into a type of self judgement rather than the pursuit of knowledge through logic. So I thought of a little parable that I accidentally thought up at lunch recently. I related to a friend that I had not gotten my glasses until I was in my early 20s. Up until that point, the world was a bit out of focus, but I didn?t know the difference. Only when I started driving and someone would say, "Turn right on such-and-such street," did I notice my impairment. I would say, "Where is such-and-such street?"

"You just passed it," came the reply. However, years of poor sight had prepared my mind to deal with this problem. I simply ignored it. Either that or I would make up the words given the blurry image I could make out in the distance. As you can imagine, my road prowess was not legendary.

Then I got into the newspaper business and was forced to admit that I could not see well. I had to read copy on computer screens with a squint and a prayer, often using the same mental tricks on myself that I had played with road signs. For instance, if you can make out even part of a word, you can usually guess what it is given the context of the sentence. However, sometimes this is not the case. I finally broke down and went to the eye doctor, or ophthalmologist, if you prefer. He told me I had a touch of something and a stigmatism.

"How much time do I have left?" I asked him, only half joking. He explained that I have eyes shaped not perfectly round, leading my vision to blur at times.

So, to make a long story longer, I got my first pair of glasses. It was amazing. The trees have distinct leaves that are more than masses of green, more like little green villages. Each blade of grass took on more significance in itself, while small critters and such were much easier to pick out of the landscape.

That is when I realized that there is a whole world out there that I had never witnessed first hand. My poor eye sight had led me to miss a good deal of life's detail.

This taken in consideration, I wonder how many other pairs of glasses I need in my life? How many other things are there that I have yet to see with clarity or even notice at all?

I would say the poor eyes were only a small portion of the equation. I have heard people say the more you look for something, the harder it becomes to find. There is truth to that, but only after you discover all of the sorted pairs of "glasses" that are missing in life can you rip through the veil and see with clarity how blind you are. Ah, an accidental oxymoron, another unnoticed facet of life.

At least with all this introspection I finally found something to write about, even if it wasn't really anything I hadn't noticed before.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

Email: allnews@ls.net