Word Number 5 Occhiolism
- Max Atreides
- Oct 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 20, 2023
Word Number 5 Occhiolism
Part 1: Between Living and Dreaming
Seeing the World as it is, and as it could be
Definition
n. the awareness of how fundamentally limited your senses are—noticing how little of your field of vision is ever in focus, how few colors you’re able to see, how few sounds you’re able to hear, and how intrusively your brain fills in the blanks with its own cartoonish extrapolations—which makes you wish you could experience the whole of reality instead of only ever catching a tiny glimpse of it, to just once step back from the keyhole and finally open the door.
Italian occhiolino (“little eye”), the original name that Galileo gave to the microscope in 1609. Pronounced “oh-kyoh-liz-uhm.”
"The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” by John Koenig
During an assignment for my creative writing class this summer I wrote an awful braided essay in which I attempted to connect my gender identity to a horribly boring air traffic meeting, and the Mantis shrimp. While all three of these things were definitely in the piece, the elements didn’t do much braiding, it ended up sounding like a bunch of shrimp facts randomly thrown into my 5th grade diary, any profound insight overshadowed by raging hormones and Welches grape soda.
At the time I wasn't able to convey why I was still thinking about the Mantis shrimp 10 years after my first introduction to them on a random Radiolab podcast. According to the show, this small sea creature has eyes with 16 color receptors compared to our measly three. It’s strange to realize that all eyes are not the same. While I obviously know different types of eyes exist in nature, there is no way for me to really comprehend what life would be like without my current pair of eyes. I have been thinking about how color might vary from person to person, not color blindness, but that me and you might have different versions of yellow. It’s something I can’t visualize because every color I might try to imagine is based off of what my own eyes can see, what my brain interprets as “yellow.” So I can never see a “different yellow,” not unless there is some physical or chemical shift in my body, and I certainly cannot see a specific person’s yellow, it would just be an altered version of my own “original yellow.” If you asked 50 different people to describe the color yellow would you get 50 different answers? I would guess about 50% of those people would describe yellow as the sun or "light." This doesn’t mean all of their yellows are the same, only that they have probably never been tasked with describing the color yellow without using the word. As a child we are taught to color the sun yellow, usually with a box of crayons only containing one option.
Following this train of thought, what does yellow look like to my partner? Is it as warm and radiant? Does it demand joy regardless of the shade? And what about purple? I have a friend who is purple, deep and interesting. Twilight in my hometown, after the sun goes down but before it is dark. When the frogs come out to chirp. Sometimes she is lavender, soft and gentle, comforting, soothing. Other days lighting, bold, brave, fast and terrifying. She is the color of the pansies in my garden, my notebook for the month of October, the nail polish on my toes.
I am pink. Tender and fragile but also bold, a statement. Soft, gentle. A cherry blossom in April that has fallen and is now floating down the river. Strawberry milk, bubble gum ice cream, my favorite cargo pants I own twice in dark, once in light, and once in checkers just in case.
And my partner, my fiancé, the love of my life, is a mash of colors radiant as the sun against the clouds, painting them in a watercolor of passion, warmth, and security. I watch these colors melt and fade into each other, a new combination each day. Blush pink in the morning, rising again, the color of patience, of softness. He is freshly cut grass in the summer, bringing back my childhood carelessness. He is cerulean, cool and clean, the color of life, of love, of happiness and the future. He is the G major chord and a freshly brewed cup of coffee with plenty of vanilla creamer after a restless night.
Unfortunately, my further research into the Mantis shrimp revealed that their extra color receptors don’t do much in the way of color recognition, but does give them the ability to see a different property of light, polarization, which is invisible to our own naked eye. The Atlantic presents an easy to digest visualization of polarization as imagining a bunch of strings attached to the wall by only one end, "if these strings are randomly shaken, they will vibrate in every direction, much like how non-polarized light behaves. But if the string is shaken only up and down, the vibrations are restricted to a single axis, mimicking vertically polarized light." (Zhang) In the case of the Mantis shrimp they are able to see up to SIX types of polarization, horizonal, vertical, both diagonal directions, and in a circular clockwise/counterclockwise direction. (Zhang) A pair of polarized sunglasses only accounts and filters out horizontal polarized light, a single direction compared to this small one’s mighty 6 (Zhang). The referenced article linked at the end also contains a short in which a camera is used to mimic life through shrimp eyes. As useful as it must be, especially in water, I think I prefer my eyes the way they are.
Okay enough with the Shrimp facts.
I have always loved color, early as I can remember my wardrobe has been a mash of it. Skirts with multicolored flowers, purple corduroy pants, a red dress covered in tiny sequence that shimmered with rainbows in the sun. My socks and even shoes sometimes didn’t match, one green and one pink Croc was an iconic look at around 12. Hats, bows, headbands, bandanas, and now hair I can’t go three weeks without coloring a new vibrant shade.
I remember reading the book “The Giver” back in middle school and many times since. I can’t imagine a word without color and yet I often take it for granted, letting the grey tint of everyday life creep into my eyes and dull once vibrant colors. Some days I do feel like I live in Jonah’s society. A place where the “hardships” are removed from people’s lives, sunny days just become days. A place where moving out of town or having a difference in opinion isn’t respected. If life was fair, would the colors be different? Would pumpkin spice exist without the leaves changing in the fall?
Sometimes I pretend to have Jonah’s power, the ability to give someone a memory by placing my hands on their back. While I can’t physically transfer memories to people, through writing I can give a piece of my life to you. I am attempting to bring more color into life, replacing even a little grey from the world and replacing it with pink, with me.
After writing this piece I went to the air traffic control floor and asked the 11 controllers that were there to write down a description of the color yellow without using the word “yellow.” Here are the responses, my assumption was right!
1. Gold, but not shiny
2. School Bus
3. Ripe banana/High brightness data block
4. Bright, lemony, sunny, data blocks, caution
5. Dehydrated pee
6. A happy, shiny, relaxed banana
7. The beginning of a sunset
8. Light, bright and sunny
9. Bright and sunny
10. Warm fruit
11. The color on the Colorado flag that is neither red, nor white, nor blue.
Yours,
Maxie
References
Mantis Shrimp Article
Zhang, Sarah. “This Camera Can See the Mantis Shrimp's Invisible World.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Apr. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/mantis-shrimp-eye-camera/557195/.
Radiolab "Colors" Podcast
Koenig, John. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
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