some thoughts on नेत्र and दृष्टि

If something works well for extended periods, it's often forgotten and taken for granted.

Anyone who's heard Passenger's "Let Her Go" knows this.

Side Notes: I started the blog to develop a habit of writing. Every time I had a #deep thought about something, I'd start writing. I was in ✨the zone✨; reading philosophy books, taking out time to reflect and building on my ideas and my views of and for the world. In the past 6 months, I picked up twenty of the random thoughts stuck in my head and tried expanding them. Few I outlined and left, many others I kept writing until I forgot this blog existed. So, neither of those are ready per se. ohno but will this post bask in the internet's glorious and loving light? IDK. Even if it does, I'm just writing this for me pfft.

"OMG gavin has just dropped a new post, I can't wait to know what crazy thoughts are going on in his mind" is what you must be thinking. Don't get your hopes high though, I'm easily moved. Watched this random YouTube short about people who couldn't agree on the colour of some dress. This is about that. btw, if you're annoyed by how I spell colour then excusez mon britannique.

I'd often have thoughts ever since I was little; is my green the same as someone else's green if my sad isn't the same as theirs? This was after I was diagnosed with myopia and had prescription glasses. Even if two people share the same "number" or dioptre power, there are a ton of differentiating factors between their sets of eyes. My eyes for instance are very different from each other. From power to the cylindrical, spherical or axis components, my eyes differ from each other in ways likely more than just these, although they do share a similar shade of the iris.

Oh, these ugly colours that hurt my eyes, Begone! After downloading and editing this image, I've realised the short wasn't about this :big brain time:. The dress had something to do with illusions, assumptions or something, ah idk ask Vox.

I've been looking into getting LASIK surgery, and that's made me think a lot about eyes. I've been appreciating how nice things look on my TV, or how the sky looks from the confines of my home (tis the szn).

Anyway, back to that 30-second bundle of pizzazz. Seems like people don't see the same colours; turns out my thoughts aren't as stupid after all. It was about the image I've chosen for this post, if you can count over 33 colours then you're a tetrachromat, over 20 then trichromat and a dichromat if you can see up to 20. On further digging, I realised that this test had been formulated sometime in early 2001 by Prof. Diana Derval. This Springer paper has been around longer than I started sciencing AHHHH. Also, the kind doctor has pointed that tetrachromats won't get tricked by the white-blue dress. The more surprising bit is that I might be tetrachromatic which means I have four colour receptors, which is above average :major thonk:

Here's Diana's earlier article on LinkedIn. I needed to be sure but I ain't listening to random peeps on LinkedIn or YouTube; I turn to BuzzFeed. AND yeah, it's pretty legit. I have crazy high numbers for my eyes, heck the lenses make light do gymnastics before it enters my eyes even, but I can see more colours than most people. And when it comes to it, I've seen more colours than 99% of all humanity that ever existed and that's crazy. If you're wondering if the statement I've just made isn't sane and I'm going to explain it, you're probably right and I won't.

now, if you're a fellow tetrachromat and not a bird, you can be my friend. if you aren't, dw you are still loved....just not by me ;)