Like all good economists, I am both frugal and insensible to considerations of style, so my battered old spectacles are now more than a decade old. I’d be lost without them, quite literally. My unaided eyes are unable to read a book at a distance of more than four inches. Occasionally, this serves as a superpower – I can take my glasses off in tedious meetings and drift away, as blissfully blind as if I had pulled my jumper over my head. Usually, however, I prefer to be able to see, and so the glasses have followed me into the shower, the karate dojo, and a number of other situations that need not be detailed here. As a result, I rarely mislay my glasses – which is lucky, because they are slim enough that I find them invisible at a range of 3ft.
一如所有優秀的經濟學家，我生活儉樸，對於時尚也感覺遲鈍，因此，那副破舊的老眼鏡已經跟了我十幾個年頭。沒有它們，我可能真的會迷路。我裸眼看書的距離不能超過4英寸。有時候，這也算一項超能力——當會議無聊時，我可以摘下眼鏡走走神，就彷彿將外套向上拉罩住頭部一樣幸福地失明。然而，通常我還是更喜歡視界清晰的感覺，於是我戴著眼鏡洗澡，戴著眼睛練空手道，以及出席其它一些場合，這裏就不一一贅述了。因此，我很少會忘記把眼鏡放在什麼地方了——這算是幸運的習慣，因爲它們太過纖細，在3英尺外我就看不見了。