This blog will talk about two types of blindness that I am facing with: physical and internal.
On a physical level that I am temporarily blind in my left eye due to keratoconus and had to do two operations on the 23rd of April 2026 to adjust my eye and not let it spread further. Fortunately that my case is treatable and my right eye is filling the gaps hence I can see normally but facing light sensitivity and shadows/ghosting plus it takes lots of time to recover (6 months plus for full recovery, 3 months for general recovery) thus I am forced to decrease screen time (which I have my phone locked out of all social media apps majority of the day) and take breaks when coding at work, on the bright side that I can read and write without any issues thus I can resume reading books and write in my journals as usual.
On an internal level that I realized how much I am somewhat blind on certain things going on in my life and that time is slipping faster than I have expected. After doing the surgery and staying at home unable to do anything than to recover, I reflected on lots of things in my life and realized that the majority of the things that I was trying to focus on and maintain can take a break, I can sit down and breathe for a while and enjoy this moment of silence which felt liberating to a certain degree.
We are always in a state of rush and we have to be on top of everything going around us otherwise we are missing out. Social media apps have made your feed an algorithmically tailored list rushing to please you with content and show you how much people are doing better than you around and how much the world is not a great place to live in due to war and politics along the fact that AI is going to replace me and you my dear reader.
Although we are connected more than ever before yet we feel lonelier than ever, we lost our sense of community and connection for the sake of 10 second videos and instant messaging. Things that used to bring us joy no longer due and that is because those instant rush of dopamine hits fry our brains and makes us unable to think nor connect as before. We are always in a constant state of stimulation that our brains can't keep up and we feel frustrated and stressed out.
As someone who sits in-front of a screen all day long as a software engineer who is building his own company on the side, it is easy to start rushing things to catch up with what is going on with the world and to see that AI agents can do my work far better than I would have imagined. You feel that the idea of craftsmanship in the software world is no longer applicable due to the sheer accuracy that AI agents can produce and now it is about distribution and market emergence rate.
I have rushed many things in my life to keep around in the hype but what is the end goal that I want to reach? Are the things I am doing now worth it? I can offload a good chunk of the things that I am handling and move on in my life, why do I have to do everything at once?
After sitting at home to rest, I realized that the majority of the things that I am focusing on can take a break and I go enjoy living my life where I can go read a book in ease without focusing on what will happen next and make myself a nice latte in my coffee bar at home. I was blind on the things that do bring me joy in this life and focused on what is around in the moment.
Let life take its own course and will be doing things more deliberately and slowly. I did enjoy sitting at home doing nothing than reading books and drinking coffee all day long to recover from my surgery, the best part: nothing feel apart and life moved on normally, there were no fires burning in my email and my company is moving alright. We can always resume the things that do matter in our lives when we choose them out of consciousness and clarity.
I will less active online as I used to be thus feel free to reach out to me at hi@kalaaji.com , I am more than happy to debate or talk about anything :)