The "Is A Blink A Wink Or Is A Wink A Blink?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Searching for my pair of goggles that I use when I use my weedwacker.  Never had to worry about protecting my eyes from the debris that is thrown my way while edging the lawn.  But, now that I don't have to wear glasses anymore due to my eye doctor giving me 20/20 vision when he fixed my cataract, I have to take more precautions not to get anything in my eyes and ruin my vision.  That's why I need to wear goggles or at least sunglasses to keep debris out of my eyes.  And, even when I do wear goggles, I find myself blinking more than usual when running my weedwacker.   There is always more dust in the air when working outside and everyone tends to blink a bit more in those environments.  I remember reading about the reasons why we blink a few years ago.  Seems that about 10% of your waking hours are spent with your eyes shut due to blinking.  We normally blink about 12 times per minute or about 10,000 times a day.  When you add the time you blink during the day and the time your eyes are closed when you sleep, that's about 40% of your daily time is spent with your eyes closed.  Wouldn't it be neat if someone could invent a miniature screen that we could place on the inside of our eyelids to be used to watch films or television?  But, there must be a good reason why we blink so much, even when we do so while working outdoors.  Well, the number one reason is to lubricate our eyes.  If you don't blink on a regular basis, your eyes may sting.  Watching TV for long periods of time or even reading is cause not to blink as much as you should which can make your eyes sting more.  Lubricating tears are produced by your body with the intent to lubricate your eyes.  The tears have three layers; the mucous layer that makes it stick to your eye; the aqueous layer which is a thick layer that hydrates and keeps bacteria out of your eye (think coronavirus); and the oily layer that prevents the other two predominantly watery layers from evaporating.  Every time we blink the tears are pulled across the surface of our eyes to keep it lubricated and prevent the spread of bacteria.  Certainly helps when I am working on the lawn and causing plenty of dust and dirt to fly into the air.  Another reason for blinking is much like your wipers in your car swiping the windshield after shooting wiper fluid on it.  The water in you eye cleanses and soaks up debris while the blinking is the windshield wiper wiping it away.  Another reason to blink is to protect against perceived dangers.  Perhaps I turn my head sideways when I am edging the lawn with the weedwacker and dirt somehow finds its way into my eyes.  Your eyes can close in 0.1 seconds when something strikes it such as dust or even a bright light.  This is called corneal reflex and helps keep items from entering the eyes.  The final reason we blink is a questionable one.  It is said you blink to take a mental break.  Researchers say they found that people blink at perceived break points such as in reading a magazine or book when you tend to blink when you change the page so you don't have to blink as much while reading the material.  Or, if your mind is taking a mental break from learning something, you tend to blink quickly so you are ready to  begin learning once again.  One way or another, we spend about 10% of our waking hours blinking.  That plus the time we have our eyes closed as we sleep; adds up to about 40% or our life having our eyes closed.  Now if I could only find my goggles I could keep from blinking as much, thus allowing me to take a quick nap so I can use up those blinks I didn't need to take.   It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.