Speaking Visually

While completely blinded by the snow glare off the mountain today at work, it occurred to me just how keyed into our sense of sight our entire lives are.

One of the more famous examples of philosophy that I love to quote is the old "blue" challenge. Describe to someone the color blue, in a manner they would understand, without referencing another color, or something (like the sky) that IS that color.

I haven't done it yet. I don't think I've met someone that can, either. Scientifically describing "blue" as a certain frequency of reflected light comes close, but the inevitable question of "Yes, but what does that frequency LOOK like?" brings us back around to the beginning.

Stop and think a moment. When first challenged to describe something, what is your first instinct? Reference, probably to something similar that you've seen. Even our feelings are described this way. Anger, lust, other powerful and usually negative emotions are described in books as red, dark, or black. "Green" with envy? So full of it your eyes are turning brown?

As a species, our visual acuity has brought a remarkable sharpness that other things can't necessarily match. The human visual range, in terms of spectra seen, is one of the widest in the animal kingdom. True, we can't see into the ultraviolet, like insects, and our low-light vision is pretty abysmal, yet the range of sight that we are given is still quite astonishing. (As is the range of our other senses. There's a fascinating essay on this by Neil DeGrasse Tyson that everyone should read in his book.)

Does this explain our tendency to assosciate everything with the property of sight? In my opinion, no. Look at some of our favorite pasttimes: movies, videogames, card games, etc. All share a key visual component; one can argue that the experiences are fundamentally changed for the worse if they cannot be experienced visually. (Trust me, Devil May Cry sucks blindfolded.)

We are convinced in sight as a fact in and of itself. First priority in a murder case? Eyewitnesses. Outlandish claims by a cryptozoologist? "Many witnesses...." "I saw the monster myself." Trust is implicit in this sense of ours, despite the urgings of card sharks, magicians, and effect artists to the opposite.

Fantasy writers, Japanese Myths, and even comic books seem to believe that removing our sense of sight can somehow empower our other senses. Notions of "the blind sage", zen, and even Yoda's "letting go" into the Force all have strikingly similar meanings. IS there something to be gained by relying less on our primary method of evaluating the world? One author described being blind as not sharpening her other senses - just forcing her to use them smarter than others would.

A writer's challenge, then: go an entire day without referencing something visually. Continue about your activities as normal, but try to actively separate your sense of sight from your conscious thoughts, words, and actions. If asked to describe something, attempt to do so with non-visual language. "What did it look like?" "Like a hangover feels."

As a writer, I think this will help me a great deal with descriptive language. Metaphor, simile, and those terrible symbols that somewhere fall in between. If I can do it with the way I speak, hopefully the way I write will improve. If you are or know an aspiring author, have them try this. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out.


.... that's a joke.