do u SEE what i mean?
glasses, right.
Gotta love these round, concave pieces of glass I wear on my face that prevent me from slamming into door frames (even though I do anyway).
But, really though, glasses are quite a unique invention. Yes, everything comes from something and the modern glasses we have today are no exception. Glasses themselves come from a weird history of using bones and precious stones to block the sun’s rays, but the first pair of corrective lenses was actually inspired by looking through a fishbowl. The concept of glasses and the invention itself are actually quite original, though. Why else would someone decide to carve into a piece of glass and affix them to their face? Other than refinements and improvements in technique and precision, glasses have remained a relatively unchanged invention at their base.
It’s interesting to see the types of impacts glasses have had over the years. Glasses are unique in that they are both a corrective necessity and a fashion statement. Imagine whole stores dedicated to picking out the cutest headgear. That’s right, you can’t. On top of that, glasses have led to a specific medical field: optometry. They are a unique blend of science, aesthetics, and practicality.
On top of this, glasses have also had a significant social impact. Glasses can be seen as a sign of “intelligence” even though we know that vision problems can be caused by hereditary factors as well. In pop culture, glasses can signify “nerdiness” or be used to denote ugly characters before their transformation. We’ve created glasses in thousands of shapes, sizes, and colors. Glasses are even sold without prescriptions as fashion accessories.
Lastly, glasses have inspired a “spin-off”: contacts. While contacts are pretty similar to glasses, you can’t really make a bold statement and sometimes if you aren’t careful around heat you can melt your contact to your eyeball.
All in all, glasses are an important object to society which I feel contain misleading connotations. We use them for fashion, to see, to appear more intelligent. We need special people to tell us how blind we are and prescribe us the correct number at which our glasses should be shaped. We need special people to just make glasses. Glasses are an entire business in and of themselves. After all, where would we be without glasses?