Monday Musing #8: Learning Together
In last week's Musing, I went down the storytelling rabbit hole with my 2017 epic in the Grand Canyon with Jim Walmsley. We ran through the Canyon, chasing the female Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim Fastest Known Time but instead, I ended up hands between my legs, sitting on a rock, puking on my shoes.
To help me cool off from the dooming heat stroke I was slipping into, Jim handed me his sunglasses, claiming that every time he put on his shades, his core temp cooled down a few degrees.
I low-key called BS, but only because trying to see out of the lenses while running was so frustrating, I never really gave myself the chance to feel the cooling effects Jim claimed. So I tucked this piece of advice away, and it didn't make sense to me until Barry, who is the brains behind understanding the Method Seven tech, gave us a lesson on what happens to the eyes when exposed to the sunlight.
I described how the UV rays heat the fluid behind your eyes during prolonged exposure and that, of course, you would feel hotter if that fluid heats up!
But, whoops! I made a mistake. James, Method Seven CEO, and Barry reminded me that the "heat" on your eyes is IR - infrared heat. It is sometimes called "near IR," which refers to the wavelength. I mistakenly said "UV" when talking about heat.
It was then pointed out that UV or Ultra Violet is the generic name for all the light below the visible spectrum. That includes UVC, UVA, UVB. IR is not visible.
To be completely transparent, some of this stuff is hard for me to grasp! My creative brain needs a few tries. Hear, listen, absorb, then understand. The point still stands, though! When your eyes are exposed to sunlight, it heats the fluids behind your eyes, and that is just bananas. I believe it is vital for me to understand, even if it takes me a while! And I think it is essential for you to understand, too.
One of the biggest regrets people later in life preach to young folk is that they wish they took better care of their skin, teeth, and eyes. On paper, we all know we should. We know what happens to the skin after a lifetime of prolonged sun exposure, yet it's still difficult to take ownership and put on sunscreen because in a young person's mind (hello, it me), we are the exception.
In my case, knowing the damage IR and UV have on the eyes didn’t spur change. It was that I could see better with these glasses than I could without them. I theoretically know that I should wear sunglasses, but any concern for long-term eye health went out the door anytime I tried to change. Distorting my vision in the short term was too great a cost for my young-person short-term thinking. But now, with good lenses, the change is reinforced by the knowledge that I will f*ck up my eyes if I don't start protecting them.
So working with and for Method Seven keeps getting cooler and cooler. Sometimes, we feel like what we do doesn't matter. We are just selling things.
But then I think about it a little more. These "things" drastically improved my experience on the trails. Seeing clearly, no matter the lighting or exposure is a luxury that I didn't know I was living without. And because of that, I finally, FINALLY, am doing something about protecting my eyes. A win, for sure.
There is a reason I said no to sponsorship and instead asked James to hire me. There is a reason Dean Karnazes, who has his pick of the sunglass litter, chooses to work with Method Seven. We are doing something right. But the education piece is the key. Getting people to understand that they are not alone in their eyewear experience.
Look out for the introduction to our Beta Team, to be chosen this week and announced in early February. If you didn't get picked for this round of beta testing, you can still sign up for data collection with PWR Lab to help us develop our eyewear. Dean, the team at PWR Lab, and I will be going through the data and will even reach out to individuals with questions, personally. We want to design something that improves your experience, just like it has improved mine. We want to be unmistakable.
