“Reality depends a great deal upon one believing what he sees—or seeing what he believes. Either way.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Secrets of a Noble Key Keeper
Introduction
Yeah, it has been a while since the last time I write something new. I need to jumpstart my writing habit again. So, I want to take it easy for myself and write whatever that comes to my mind.
Do I Look Like a Talking Octopus to You?
I was inspired by a random thought when thinking about reality. Like the quote in the beginning by Richelle E. Goodrich, we perceive our reality by believing what we see, or we see what we want to believe.
To understand this concept, let’s dive into the world of some people which has issues with their eyes.
Reality of, for example, The Color Blind People
A color blind man’s world is in grayscale. The color he knows is black, white, and grey. When other normal people said a grass is green, he can’t see it as green, only grey. But, the common theory is a grass is green and everyone normal says so.
Even though he does not see green, he develops a belief that ‘grass is green’. Next time, if he’s asked what color the grass is, he will say it’s green. Or, he could simply say: “I’m sorry I can’t see that, I’m color blind.” Case closed, everyone understands his suffering of living a world like the pictures in 1920s. And everyone who already knows will simply be more careful when talking about colors with him.
There is another kind of color blind. The partially color blind type. I am partially color blind and there are some things you need to know about being a partially color blind guy:
- The difficulty of easily differentiate red and green in a certain spectrum.
- I can’t differentiate mixed colors such as purple with a little of red or cyan with a little of green.
Alright, if you are one of the normal people, I know that in your mind right now you want to test me about the colors. Before you do, please continue reading the next two sections. I don’t know about the other partially color blind people, but there are two things I hate when talking about colors.
Mixed Color Problem
Normal people say a mixed color’s name as the base color. Cyan (blue-green) is green, lime (yellow-green) is green, sometimes magenta (blue-red) is pink.
It takes me longer to see cyan as cyan because I can’t see the green in first glance, I see it as blue. Lime is yellow, and magenta is also blue. And yet they insist CYAN AND LIME IS GREEN!
Yes, some cyan and lime has more green, and in which I still accept that you can say it as green. But I will never accept that the cyan and lime which has lesser green than blue as green!
Color Tests, UGH
Including tests by doctors or by normal people.
When with doctors, I only have to answer the first page, because it’s still easy (usually it’s a 12): colored text and the rest is grey. Then I won’t bother with the rest of the tests, quickly answering “can’t see that”. Because it’s a test by the doctors and a formal procedure, I’m not triggered.
But, no matter how many times this happened, I can’t ever get used to being tested by normal people when I say I’m partially color blind. They will point to an object and ask what color the object is. Sometimes they pick the obvious ones, which result in them not believing I got issues with colors.
When they point to an object with a mixed color, such as cyan and lime, I used to say it as blue and yellow. Then they argue it’s green and green, like the mixed color problem from the section before.
In the recent 10 years of my life, I developed a rather objective way to answer : I look at the colors for a longer period and say: it’s a mix of blue and green / it’s a mix of yellow and green, therefore you cannot say it’s green, and I hate if you say it as green, BECAUSE IT HAS LESS GREEN THERE!
Actually, I don’t yell at them because of the constraint of social norms. I don’t want to be called “That partially color blind a**hole”.
What’s Your Point, Then?
I just showed a simple example, and a bit of rant, that a reality is already perceived differently through the eyes of normal people and color blind people (totally or partially). A reality where the world has vibrant colors, grayscale colors, and full-of-arguments colors. Different reality in the same world.
Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s dive into my random theory.
What I Hear You Say Might Not Be What You Actually Say
I’m not talking about human psyche or philosophy where different people can choose to perceive the state we’re currently as delightful, lamentable, or simply as is. That’s a serious topic for another post. In this post I just want to imagine things.
Take a look at your own body and describe it. Surely you will describe the number of hands, fingers, or whatever you have right now in your body. You know that you are a human being.
Now, a simple question: Are you sure you are not an octopus? The talking one I mean.
Am I Human, or Octopus, or maybe…?
Why octopus, you ask? It could be anything though: fish, elephant, cat, dog, cthulhu, whatever. It does not matter what it is, the point is that I see you as human and I am definitely sure that you also see me as a human, according to my understanding and reality.
Though I hear you saying I am a perfectly normal human being, it could be that what you actually say is that I am a normal octopus being just like others, living under the sea with our eight tentacles and we love to eat human balls sold in the sea malls. Then you will hear me replying to you in octopi language saying thanks for acknowledging me as a normal octopus being. But I will hear myself saying thanks to you for acknowledging me as human being.
I will never know that what I say in English in my reality, actually is Octolish language in your reality, because you understand what I’m saying. And you will also never know that your Octolish is English in my ear. Because strangely it converts between our realities so we can try to understand each other, not always but most of the time.
Do We Actually Have the Same Glasses to See?
It’s like a different glasses and translator for every human being. But, somehow it works when the messages are sent and received. We have a pretty much the same standards of beauty and delicacy in our same world. I can’t imagine what a pretty octopus looks like or what human balls tastes like, because it’s absurd on my reality. But it looks like “pretty female human” could be an equivalent of your “pretty female octopus”.
When you are reading this post paragraph by paragraph, what you understand as “human” is our normal and “octopus” is something rather absurd. You might read “human” as “octopus” and “octopus” as “human”. We will never know, but we both agree that I explained the case of different realities in different eyes in an extreme case, or probably another topic in your reality.
Perhaps the closest example of this is the game Saya no Uta. I’m not going to spoil anything here because it’s a great game. Just play and you will understand what I’m talking about.
Alright, just a quick summary: after discharged from the hospital after a certain incident, the world seen in the eyes of the protagonist (you) becomes very different and definitely the worst, unlike the normal world the protagonist see before. The only thing keeps him sane is a girl called Saya, because she looks like the only normal thing from the old world before the accident. OK, now go to Steam and download the game.
OK, Does It Even Matter?
No, it’s not. Thank you for reading this far and willing to spend about 12 minutes of your life.
Conclusion
Joke aside, it matters to me because I think it’s a thought-provoking topic, at least for me. I do wonder if everyone see things differently, but somehow we can understand each other. Though, as far as I know, there is no way to test this random theory. Because if I say something is absurd, you will also understand it as absurd, like for example: five meter tall human.
But, if someone wants to do the technical hard work for me to prove this random theory (no need to tell me you are working on this though), I would like to see what everyone actually sees with their eyes. I’m sure there will be infinite forms of beauty that will serve as great inspirations in my reality.
Well, I had a great time writing this anyway. Let me know what do you think in the comments! Would you like to see through others eyes to confirm if the world looks the same?
“One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”
― Tim Burton
