One Saturday afternoon I found myself in Romford Town Centre in floods of tears.

It was somewhere between Downtown Records and the municipal fountain. I was rubbing my eyes, dabbing my nose, sobbing and snivelling.

Standing nearby, Andy declared in a loud voice:

‘I’ve told you: it’s over. Why can’t you deal with it?‘

I could sense that we two teenagers were attracting attention from passers-by. I was hot and bothered and embarrassed.

I continued to weep.

‘Just pull yourself together, Jim. We can’t go on like this. It’s over!’

This story is not as it seems.

I had recently acquired my first set of gas-permeable contact lenses, and was struggling to get used to them. The slightest speck of dust caused intense irritation.

It was Andy’s idea of a joke. And to be fair it was quite funny.

It’s no surprise perhaps that research by ophthalmologists shows that our constant screen time is radically changing our eyes. (Adam Popescu, The Guardian, 14 Nov 2021)

The human eye is supposed to stop growing after our teens, just like the rest of our bodies. But our endless messaging, speaking on conference calls, reading and writing emails - what experts call ‘near work’ - strains our optic organs. We blink less and our lenses shift, and in time this leads to the elongation of our eyeballs. We then suffer myopia and the gradual loss of the eyes’ ability to focus.

‘The shape of the eye is round like a basketball. When an eye becomes near-sighted, myopic, the eye is longer, like a grape or olive.’
Dr Eric Chow, Miami optometrist

Near-sightedness affects half of young adults in the US, twice as many as 50 years ago, and over 40% of the population.

To address this depressing phenomenon, we are encouraged to take breaks, blink and lubricate; to spend more time outdoors; to embrace the 20-20-20 model.

‘Every 20 minutes, look at a distance 20 feet away, for 20 seconds.’
Dr Luxme Hariharan, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Miami

Some experts have observed that our ancestors spent more time staring at the horizon, scanning the distant panorama for potential risks and rewards. This induced a state of calm when there was nothing going on; and a state of intense focus when there was a threat or opportunity. They suggest that expanding our peripheral vision – ‘horizon gazing’ - may equip us to better concentrate and cope with stress.

You could argue that excessive screen time does not just cause physical short-sightedness and mental stress. For Planners it also produces Strategic Myopia: reliance on the same widely published data; concentration on the same narrow particulars of the problem; convergence on the same conventional solutions.

'Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.'
Eleanor Roosevelt (after Henry Thomas Buckle)

We should get out more. We need to breathe fresh strategic air; to take in new cultural stimulus; to observe contextual social change. We need to think more broadly; to plan more deeply; to raise our eyes to the horizon. Because the story is not always as it seems.

As the artist Vee Talbott suggests in Tennessee Williams' ‘Orpheus Descending’:

'Appearances are misleading, nothing is what it looks like to the eyes. You got to have vision to see!’

'It's over.
It's over.
It's over.
Summer came and passed away,
Hardly seemed to last a day.
But it's over, and what can I do?
Music playing in the air,
Silence on a darkened stair
'Cause it's over, and what can I do?’
ELO, ‘It’s Over’ (J Lynne)

No. 488

I have recently returned from my first trip to Australia.

My brother Martin and I thoroughly enjoyed the sea and sunshine; walks and views; fresh food and robust wine. We visited museums, galleries and surf clubs; vibrant markets, friendly pubs and the hallowed MCG. We spotted wallabies, kookaburras and brush turkeys; drank piccolo coffees, sipped Coopers from schooners and paid at the bar. It struck me as a country of progress and positivity; optimism and opportunity.

On one occasion we were standing outside the Sydney Opera House, admiring its splendid ceramic-tiled shells. How magnificent to see this familiar building up close.

An Indian tourist approached and asked to have his picture taken. Once we had obliged, the young man had another request.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘I’d like to know: Why are all these people here?’

‘What do you mean? Why are these people in Sydney?’

‘No. This place, here.’ He gesticulated at the clusters of sightseers wandering around the building’s forecourt. ‘I asked the Security Guard and he doesn’t know.’

We hesitated for a moment.

‘Well, this is the Sydney Opera House. It’s an architectural masterpiece. It’s one of the wonders of the modern world.’

‘Oh. Thank you. I see.’

The tourist nodded gratefully at our explanation, though he still seemed a little perplexed.

'I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.’
Eleanor Roosevelt

We spend a good deal of time nowadays describing in great detail the trends and fashions that are impacting our world. We have reams of data, stacks of statistics to prove our points and evidence our observations. But I wonder if we spend enough time endeavouring to comprehend the underlying forces driving change, the truest cause. Do we sufficiently stop to enquire: ‘Why are all these people here?’?

We know from the relentless enquiries of children that Why? can be challenging and disarming. It is a simple question, but it takes us to the most interesting places – particularly when it is repeated.

The Toyota Motor Corporation used to ask Five Whys of a technical fault in order to establish its root cause. They believed that only after Five Whys did one arrive at the real issue, and by this method they found that product problems often derive from people and processes.

'The basis of Toyota’s scientific approach is to ask why five times whenever we find a problem … By repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.'
Taiichi Ohno

We stood talking to the Indian tourist for a little while longer. It transpired he was over on holiday from New Delhi. Not far from Agra and the Taj Mahal, we thought. Perhaps that’s why he seemed so unimpressed.

'How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done?
But when I start to try to tell you,
That's when you have to tell me
Hey... This kind of trouble's only just begun.
I told myself too many times:
Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?
That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth.
Tell me
Why...
I may be mad,
I may be blind,
I may be viciously unkind.
But I can still read what you're thinking.’

Annie Lennox, ‘Why'

No. 418

Beware Strategic Myopia: An Incident in Romford Town Centre

‘Why Are All These People Here?’: A Provocative Question at the Sydney Opera House