Good morning, T.E. Sanders here. I want to talk a little bit about creativity and obstacles. And I want to use my usual method of telling a story. So many, many moons ago, back when I was in my early 20s, I started to get a little spiderwebby thing in one of my eyes. I didn't know what it was. It wasn't very strong. I had perfect vision. It wasn't affecting my vision. It was just something that showed up every once in a while, depending on the light or whatever. So I didn't think that much of it. After some time, and we're talking a year, I noticed that it had actually spread a little And there was one in my other eye too, but it's just barely there. That's when it started to concern me. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to go to the eye doctor. So when I get there and... He starts asking me all these, what seemed like strange questions. He was, I had this long list of things. One of them was, have you been in any fights where the guy actually got a few in on you? You, any, any physical trauma? I'm like, no, I haven't had anything like that. He's like, well son, you've got cataracts like cataracts. I mean I thought that was something that old people got. What's going on? He's like, I don't know. They did spend some time trying to figure out what could have been causing it and we never figured it out. So naturally I'm kind of panicking. I mean, I knew a little bit about it because it did happen to my father whenever he was older and they did something and he ended up not blind. Although he did have some problems. I knew that this was way out there because I was way too young to be having this happen. So what else could be going on? Way too much for someone who's in his twenties. He said, well, We don't work on both eyes at once. We only work on one eye at a time. And it looks like yours are progressing at different rates anyway. So we're going to watch it. And when it gets bad enough, we'll do a surgery on one eye. And then when the other one catches up and gets bad enough, we'll do surgery on the other eye. So I'm thinking, man. they're gonna cut on my eyes. So I had a lot of time between that visit and the point at which I was gonna have my surgery when it got bad enough to think a lot about my eyes and what I would do if I actually did go blind. Because they mentioned, you know, glaucoma suspect was the word they used to do with some kind of cup thing. If you know anything about eyes, you know what I'm talking about. So I'm like, how am I gonna continue to be a creative person if I can't see. Now it just so happened at the time that this was going on was somewhat of a peak for me and my music pursuits. I was in a band, I was doing all these kinds of things, recording an album, just all the things you would do if you're a musician. So I was like, well, I don't have to stop playing music. I mean, there are some very good musicians who can't see. Probably some of the best musicians who have ever lived can't see. And then I was like, well, what about my visual arts? I mean, I need my eyes for my visual arts, right? I started coming up with all kinds of clever ways to get around that issue. It's like, I can still create. I just maybe do sculpture things that are with my hands or maybe start practicing how to draw without looking, all these different kinds of things. I even went so far as to start practicing going around my house wearing a bandana across my face so I couldn't see. And I got pretty good at it too. So the point of that is when I was facing an obstacle, a pretty daunting one, I didn't just lay down and say, okay, well, I'll have to give this up and I'll have to give that up and I won't do this and I won't do that. No, my first thought was, how am I going to continue to do these things, even if I have to do them in some different way? Now, some of that may be just my personality, but regardless, this is an approach that anyone can take. If something threatens your ability to do the things you love to do, you can find ways probably most often anyway. to still do them. So to continue the story, we got to the point where we were going to do the eye surgery. Now, I didn't have insurance. I'm a musician. I don't have any money. It turned out there was a guy who was pioneering some new technique and he had gotten to the point where he could do this with people, but he needed people who would want to do this completely brand new thing. And they said, if you'll do this, volunteer for it. We'll do it for free." I was like, okay, all right, let's go. So they did it. It was this eye. So I go and lay there and the guy said, I'm going to give you some don't care medicine. And he did some little thing over here and I pretty much instantly did not care. They could have sawed off my arm and I would have been, you know, look, I have no arm. That's interesting, huh? He gets the job done, lets me go. Everything seems to go off without a hitch. I can see. Then we wait. The other eye has to catch up. It was this one that needed to catch up and it did eventually. And I think it might have taken about a year or something. It felt like it was a pretty good while. We get to the point where this one then needs to be worked on. So they work on it. I got a new doctor at this point. I actually had a pretty good job with insurance and everything at that point. So it had to have been a year later, maybe even longer. This new doctor, he's awesome. He gets this eye done. I get home, stuff comes off. I could see with both eyes and I'm like, oh, this is great. Finally, I can put all this stuff behind me and get on with my life. So I thought, Not too much longer after that, this original lens came out. It just, I was hanging on by one little arm. It came up and I could see it floating around in there. So I called my doctor. I tell him what's going on. I was like, Oh, we need to get you out as soon as I can see you. So he slates for me to come see him. It wasn't instantly, but it wasn't, you know, it was as soon as he could because it was still hanging on. So it wasn't like it was falling into the back of my eye or something like that. I think I did go in instantly for him to see it, to see what the situation was, and then he slayed it for me to come and see it for the surgery. So between that point and the surgery itself, something started happening in this eye. I had no real reference for this. experience or anything, so I didn't know what was going on. It just looked like a little bit of something kind of hanging down in there. And I could tell it wasn't the lens. It seemed like it was in there somewhere. And I didn't call him and tell him about it because I was about to go see him anyway. I was like, okay, when I get there, I'll just tell him about it as soon as I see him. So that wasn't, I mean, that was only, I don't know, days from that point, I guess. get there, I go in, I think I'm gonna see him, I don't see him. I just see his people and they're prepping me and all that kind of stuff. And I end up getting into the surgery. I've been given the don't care medicine so I don't care anymore. And I get in there, lay down, he works on this eye, gets everything back into place. And I'm being rolled back out. Now if you didn't know, they don't put you out completely. I mean, you're out of it, but you're not asleep. And so I knew he was walking out. I was like, hey, hey, doc. He comes back over. Like, you should look in the side. Something's going on. So he leans over me. He's just doing his little light thing down in my eye and whatnot. And he's like, oh, yes, something is definitely going on. That's not good. We need to get you taken care of right away." So he wheels me back out and I maybe rode in an ambulance or something. I'm not sure because again, I was out of it. And then up at a whole other place, it was Baylor somewhere across town or whatever and completely new doctor. It turned out it was a retinal detachment going on. I was like, man, I can't catch a break. So they put me in, they're going to start working on me. Now the guy told me, he's like, I'm going to give you some more of the don't care medicine, but I can only give you a little bit. It's probably not gonna last through the whole thing. If you start feeling it, you need to tell me. It's like, all right, he goes to work on my eye. I don't really feel anything at first, but eventually I'm telling him, yes, I felt that, but it wasn't terrible yet. So he keeps working. It's like, I felt that one. They're freezing it back in place. And I don't know if they open your eye like a blooming onion or just go through some little incision or something. It's probably the latter. I mean, I can't imagine them really opening it up like a, like a can, but I tell him, I said, I felt that one. Oh, I felt that one. He said, okay, well, we're just gonna have to get creative. And we literally went like some old school Western movie and he gave me something to bite down on. And I was gripping the side things or rails or whatever on the bed. And he's just went to work. I could feel it. It felt like there was somebody inside my skull, freezing my brain to the inside of my skull cap. That was, one of the worst experiences of my life. But he gets it done. They put me back together, send me out, and now I'm completely blind. So it turns out those practice sessions with the bandana on my face ended up paying off when I needed to go to the bathroom or something. I'm not sure how long I stayed like that. It felt like it was a really long time, but probably not. The eyes healed pretty quickly, but however long it was, it was too long. And I get there, and now keep in mind, I can't see. I'm sitting there. I have no idea that when they take these things off, if I'm going to be able to see or not. So I'm starting to go through that list that I went through originally where how do I get around this issue and continue my creative pursuits? Because at the time I didn't have as many creative pursuits as I have now, but I had a handful of them and I wanted to be able to do them all. So it was You know, up to me to decide how I wanted to do that. I did not have to just say, no, I'm not going to be able to do it. If I can't see, I won't do it. No, screw that. I'm going to do things that I want to do, even if I have to find some goofy side door to get into it. Anyway, the reason I'm making this video is because it turns out those things are not made to last forever. I mean, some of them are, but like this eye will probably be fine for the rest of my life. But the one that they put in here that hooks into the little filaments that go all inside your eye, they usually only last about 20 years. Well, it's been that, and then some. I guess I should back up a little bit. So a few handful of years ago, I became a runner. Like I'm really doing a lot of running. I run 5K a day, and I haven't done that in a couple of months now, because a couple of months ago, I was doing a run. This time, I think I might have been running 10K or so. And you know, that stuff is jarring. And I kind of felt like something got in my eye, this one. and I was trying to rub it out and I'm running some more and I tried to rub it out and it just didn't seem like it wanted to come out. It was like it was a film or something. I get done with my run, I get home and I'm looking in the mirror trying to see and covering one eye and looking around and see all these little halos underneath things and notice it really looks like a dual image. If I look at something bright, there's another one of that thing I'm looking at underneath it and it's happening right now. Although my brain has started to filter that out now after a couple of months of having it happen. And I was like, oh, I bet that lens is trying to come out. So I called my doctor and I talked to him. He's like, yeah, that sounds like it. Why don't you come on in and let's take a look. So I do, I go in, he looks, sure enough, the lens has dropped down. It's like some of the arms are trying to let go. So it hasn't moved after that initial drop. It's looking stable, but he says it's going to fall out. I said, OK, what do we do about it? He said, well, you put in a new one. Oh, well, what's the technology nowadays? I mean, it's been a while. There must be some new stuff. He's like, there is new stuff, but you know, there's some decisions to be made. You could go with the older technology. It's been around for a while. It might not have been around back when I first did this, but it's been around long enough to show some you know how long it lasts and that kind of thing and this is where they actually don't try to attach it to the zonules or whatever they're called because mine are getting where they don't want to hold on to things it is sutures so they're basically putting something else so that you can attach the lens the problem with it is that one's only designed to last about 20 years as well so i'm like all right well what else is there It turns out there's a newer technology that's similar to that one that's only been around since 2017. So you're taking the risk that maybe it's not that great. Now, of course, you have to keep in mind that they didn't just throw this out there. There was a lot of work before anyone had it put in their eye, I'm sure. And you can also kind of intuit just using logic. You can look at a thing and say, OK, well, that makes sense. That looks like it'll last. you know, some amount of time. So this one is similar to the one with the sutures. The difference is they don't use sutures because that's the weak point in that particular attack. They use these fatter arms coming off the lens. And you can just look and say, yeah, of course, that's not going to break easily. Something else might happen. Maybe it won't last long for some other reason, but it won't be that reason. So I decided to go with that. And that is happening tomorrow morning. Now, I am going to continue this video after I have the surgery. So if I show up with a patch on my eye, well you'll know immediately that it didn't go as planned. So what does creativity, creative thinking have to do with my eye problem? It goes back to a week ago whenever I showed up to have my eye work done. As you can see, I have no patch on my eye. That doesn't mean that it was fixed. It's still got the same problem. It's still hanging halfway because when I showed up and went through the pre-op, they informed me it was going to be general anesthesia, which if you don't know anything about eye surgeries, That's not generally how it's done. Every once in a while someone will do it, but not very often. I had a lot of eye surgeries and not a single one of them was using general anesthesia. They used something called MAC. So I was like, okay, that kind of threw me. I asked them to bring the doctor in and explain why they wanted to do it that way. Essentially what it boils down to is I didn't really like his answer. I mean, I'm sure it probably would have been fine, but at this point I was kind of freaking out. And the reason for the freak out has to do with part of the way my creative mind works. One of the more powerful things about creative thinking is intuition. And my intuition had been knocking pretty loud on the door for a while, long before I even showed up. It had started back when I decided to try to use someone local in the first place. I ignored it and I went on about my business. But at this point, it's banging on the door at once and so I let him in. My intuition told me to get out of there. So I left and we just decided to abort it. Wasn't really that big of a deal because this thing was still hanging on. I had a little bit more time. So I go back home and I decide to hit my original research list. It turned out there were a couple of them that I could actually get to reasonably from wherever I happened to be, because I could either be in Texas or I could be in the Carolinas. And so I picked the guy in the Carolinas, which was in northwest Georgia, and went to visit him. That was earlier this week on Monday. He checked out my eye and he's like, okay, that's looking like it's ready to let go. We need to get you an ASAP. So he sent out his assistant and she came back in and she said, yes, we can get him in Wednesday. And he's like, okay, so Wednesday next week. Cause that's exactly what I was thinking. And she's like, no, no, it's the day after tomorrow. I was like, oh, all right, well let's do it. Well today's Wednesday and interestingly my intuition is no longer slamming its fist against the door. So we'll see just how intuitive my intuition is. I will give an update later either with two eyes or one. We'll see. I'm back and it is done. I now have two fully functional eyes which is one more than I had the last time we were talking about this. Having this done got me thinking about the whole process of what got me to where I am right now, a man with two functioning eyes. Maybe it's more like intuition or the gut feeling. So what does my eyes have to do with that? And how does that relate to creativity? Well, it's pretty obvious how it relates to creativity because we use it as part of our tool set as creative people. Many of us, really, that's the most powerful thing we have is our gut feeling or our intuition on the direction we're going with something. We just follow it through and it leads us somewhere that we're hopefully happy with when we get there. Well, this is kind of like that. Whenever I first set out to do this, I initially looked up some people. You know, I was using various tools like AI and whatnot to narrow things down, to just create a funnel for myself, to get things to a point where it made sense. I had a doctor tell me to go somewhere and look at a particular technique, and then my instinct said, no, that's probably not gonna work for me. What else is there? And then I found other things. And then more and more, my intuition was telling me, no, it's this, and then it's this, and then it's this other thing, and my gut feeling saying, Hey, this technique looks really interesting. It might not have been around very long, but you can kind of intuit that it would last longer than the other one. And while this is all going on, I'm talking to my regular doctor. And then my regular doctor is like, well, my partner actually does that. So I'm like, oh, OK, well, let me check that out. So I went for the more convenient thing. And my gut was telling me, no, don't do that. I went against that. I went all the way through to the process where I'm sitting in front of the doctor and I've already told the story of how we're like, nah, let's not do that. And he even used that word. And I'm talking about the doctor that I backed out with when we were sitting there talking. He said, you should go with your gut feeling. And he was right. So I went back to my original list, called up one of those guys. Everything felt great from an intuition standpoint. He took 25 minutes, knocked this thing out. The patch was off the next day, and I've been healing since then. But it really felt like it was already healed. Such a huge difference from what it was 25 years ago when I had these kinds of things done before. The technology must have really jumped. like massively. So intuition is not just for art.