Be it the mimicking of Chinese eye structure, doing the eyelid flips like undertaker, Madhuri’s ‘aakhiya milau aakhiya churau’ eye-step, or the childhood craze of squinting to pull both eyeballs inward toward the nose, we were warned, scolded, and eventually stopped, all to protect our eyes. Outdoors, we were strongly directed not to look directly at the sun, or at a strong beam of light, or at the sharp fire rain sprinkling from a welding site. Our eyes were cared for fiercely, and the reactions this bred in us were so ingrained they became mechanical. We knew in our bones how to care for them.

That instinct worries me now. Today, I think most of what we see is inside a mobile device. And that rings a bell for me: isn’t it all too narrow? Like embracing a broad world through a single, slender frame.

The current state of eyes worries me. There are no globally known warnings, no “don’t look at that, it will hurt your eyes” for the mobile world.

I notice we have all opened up our viewing angles into a gallery of poses: a resting pose, a working pose, a lazy pose, an awkward pose, a multitasking pose, a bathing pose, a sleeping pose, a wrong pose, an inverted pose. In doing so, we don’t *think* about the eye. We just register a vague discomfort, give a little rub, maybe a wash, and then settle into another angle. We think in terms of cures: eye drops, flexible spectacles, juices, multivitamins. But that very basic understanding we once had, of looking at things a certain way, in a proper, linear perspective, is slowly diminishing. It is fading, at least, where it matters most now: in our viewing of handheld digital screens.

Just as we brush our teeth, there needs to be an everyday eye workout. A very mild, conscious rebalance. Because if the eyeball is not centered, what is?