The Rural Voice, 2019-01, Page 7 Google “Colour-Blind People See
Colour” and you will find video
compilations of colour-blind people
who slide on a pair of EnChroma
glasses and can suddenly see colours
for the first time.
The reactions are almost
universal. Glasses on, they look,
pause and the disbelief turns into
tears. Some of them can’t even talk –
their shock is so real and
overwhelming. One hipster teen slid
the glasses on, looked around and
said “this is what the world looks
like?” before bursting into tears. His
incredulity was genuine and heart
wrenching. Imagine going through
life and never seeing red? Or green?
Or the full effect of blue?
One man looks down at this
clothes and says, “Look at my pants.
BLUE jeans, right?” Another is
asked to identify colours and he
guessed blue for purple. He honestly
did not know what purple was. Yet
another video subject says, “I didn't
know what colours are.”
Their joy is palpable. While
EnChroma glasses (a brand) don’t
correct or cure colour blindness, they
allow for a clearer distinction
between colours, especially red and
green, by using a filter which adjusts
wavelengths and boosts colour.
If you need a good cry or an
appreciation for something you take
for granted, these videos will do the
trick.
As far as I know, I have been
seeing colours in full clarity my
whole life. It’s only in the past
month, in my 49th year, that I've
begun holding books further away
and asking my kids to read the small
print on medicine bottles as the clear
vision I’d taken for granted my entire
life has begun to blur. I was going to
hold out until I was 50 but one day
while in Michaels, I gave in and
bought three pairs of funky readers.
They make me a feel a bit nauseous
and blur everything in the distance
but wow! Suddenly the words I love
popped out in super definition. It was
a tremendous relief.
As a child, my mother’s poor
vision went undetected far too long.
She was a student unable to see the
blackboard when the teacher told my
grandparents to get her glasses. My
mother’s story is classic: when she
put the glasses on for the first time
she could see the leaves on the trees.
The world was luminous and lovely
and now she could see it!
Glasses offer a completely
different view of the world, allowing
people to experience the world in
high definition.
I often feel like January, the first
month of a new year, is a sort of
fresh lens to imagine a better way of
seeing and being. Imagine if we
could slide on a new pair of glasses
that went beyond blurry and clear,
and allowed us to peer deeper into
seeing who a person really is, or what
a situation really means. Not in a
creepy “know their thoughts” sort of
way, but in a genuine release of pre-
conceived notions and judgements.
We could call such glasses “Fresh
View” for they would blind us to a
person’s flaws or “remove the plank”
as it were. These new glasses would
focus on the attributes each person
possesses that makes them special.
These glasses would eliminate the
need for us to use our “this is right,
that is wrong” tools and see a person
exactly where they are at in all their
struggling truth. In family. Friends.
Even ourselves.
What a gift those would be! How
freeing to have that kind of expansive
vision; deleting judgement and
embracing grace.
I know we are all blinded by our
from heritage or bias, by our
assumptions of how people should
behave and how things should be and
by the range of expectations we often
unconsciously impose on one
another.
I’m pretty sure those kind of
glasses don’t exist but I do know we
all walk around with our own set of
blurry lenses. January is a good time
to peek inside and refocus. Maybe
we need corrective lenses. Perhaps a
pair of progressives, that allow vision
to transition as the subject changes ...
always allowing us to see the subject
no matter how close or far they are.
It’s kinda cool to think of our
perceptions as wavelengths that can
be corrected by a new lens. Perhaps a
measure of forgiveness, grace and
humility might be all we need to
clarify our vision.
While I adjust to reading glasses
and examine my blind spots, here’s
wishing you a year so full of colour it
will move you to joyous tears. Happy
new year! ◊
Note: And check out the new
Ruralite column making it’s debut
this month! Featuring a quote from
one of the month’s featured farmers,
a photo haiku, jokes and inspiration,
it’s a place to pause, think and smile
as you launch into the magazine.
January 2019 3
January is a
good time to
clean blurry
lenses
Lisa B. Pot is
editor of The
Rural Voice
and farms in
Huron County
Lisa B. Pot
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