Nevermind. Alright so you see that speckled circle up above there? Do you see a "2" in it because I don't. I am what you'd call red-green color blind. Most of my life I didn't really know, in fact I usually just thought it was like I am with cars or something(Where many many cars look pretty much the same to me and I couldn't really tell you the difference, probably because I don't care.) But actually it turns out I can't recognize some shades of red and green, and sometimes I get the two mixed up. For example LEDs are all the rage now, in fact looking over at my phone right now there is one blinking on it indicating I have an unread text. Awesome I see the blinking and see that it's a light but I couldn't tell you for sure if that's a red LED or a green LED. People tell me the difference between the two is huge but they seem the same to me. It doesn't seem like that big of a problem until I go to troubleshoot a dvd player for example and the green light means it is on and the red means it's off, I can't see so I just have to fuck with it for a while. No big deal, I seem to get along in my daily life just fine but here lately I've been thinking of it a lot.
You see, only a military doctor has officially called me color blind, other than that I have only done self administered tests, and as I understand it, color blindness is like some people with glasses, there are varying degrees. Some of the tests I can see the number or letter but most I cannot. Many times I can tell you what color shirt you are wearing but I sometimes wonder if I am just guessing correctly based on other factors. Take ketchup for example, I know from experience what a ketchup bottle looks like and can recognize the word "Ketchup" and I know where you would generally find such a condiment, when I look at ketchup I see the color red. But I wonder sometimes if I'm really seeing the red or just filling in the blank because I already knew it was red. Hopefully that makes sense, it's confusing when I say it to myself. To explain further, when you are reading this right now all these symbols aren't showing up as symbols, your brain is automatically translating them into something you can understand because you have learned them; I wonder if I am doing the same with ketchup and some other objects.
I may never know about the ketchup thing but I know for sure I got in trouble quite frequently in kindergarten because if the crayon didn't have the paper still on it so I could read what color it was I would often color things wrong. Usually my oceans and skies were purple, tree trunks were green and the leaves were brown. You might think that's weird because I'm red green color blind but not brown and purple. However purple has red in it, and so does brown. That is where I get bent over and raped by colors. There are so few basic colors and so many combinations that thus make it hard for me to correctly identify them. I"m sure my kindergarten teacher thought I was retarded(I still have letters sent home with me that prove as much.)
Here's something funny I never really talk about, I remember the first time I noticed that there are black people. It was the strangest thing, I must've been about 4 riding on a bus to daycare I think. And all of a sudden there was a kid on the bus I had sat beside many times and I realized his color was different from mine. I was freaking out cause I never noticed till just that moment then I saw them every where. Looking back I know why, it's again because of color blindness. I can tell the difference between tan, peach, black, brown, pink, red, etc. but for me I don't think those colors are as vastly different as they might be for you so I guess I just never noticed it till that point. Which reminds me of the time I got put in the hall on Martin Luther King Jr Day because I colored him green in the little handout book we were supposed to color. In my defense I thought it was the brown crayon, and second off I thought I was coloring a picture of Bryan Busby from the channel nine news team. Fuck that teacher.
I guess the main reason I chose this as my first blog topic was because as a recurring theme for this blog I want to show you all what I see when I look at the world. Most of my life I have had trouble relating to others in many ways, more than just with crayons, and I would like the opportunity to document what I see because I think others could benefit from another perspective and I think I could possibly benefit from analyzing myself and possibly seeing what others think of my perspective. Unfortunately I think most of my thoughts are going to be, like colorblindness, impossible for others to truly see what I see. I often feel like I'm some sort of traveler from another planet sent to come and steal all the women...alright that last part may have been a stretch but you probably get the picture. Basically I want to describe to the world what I see when I look a ketchup so that I can have a better understanding of ketchup.
-Trowa Barton
Ps.Color blind people are supposed to be better hunters because we rely less on colors but I'm pretty sure I missed out on that.
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