Oblivio: Stories and such by Michael Barrish

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Nothing But Dots | Mar 18 2002

I didn’t find out about my colorblindness until Driver’s Ed. class in 9th grade. The test consisted of a series of cards covered with dots of color. You were supposed to see large numbers on the cards, ghosted between the dots, but all I could see, at least in most cases, were dots.

At first I didn’t understand what was happening. I turned to the guy to my left and said, “There’s nothing on this one, right?” He said, “What do you mean, that’s an 8,” and he traced the number with his finger. Even as he traced it, I saw nothing but dots.

The number 25	Nothing but dots
Nothing but dots	Nothing but dots
Faintly, the number 56	Nothing but dots

This moment felt like that dream where your teeth fall out.

Has this ever happened to you? You hold your teeth in your hand, knowing your life is different now, because you don’t have teeth anymore, and never will. Except my experience in Driver’s Ed. was different from this in that I never really had the thing I lost. I only thought I had it. I suppose a lot of losses are like that.

I’m red/green colorblind. Best I can tell, this means I don’t see red very well. In effect, part of the color spectrum is shifted in hue towards green. Thus I make “mistakes” distinguishing red from orange, orange from yellow, and yellow from yellow-green. Purple appears to me as a shade of blue; I’ve never understood why it was granted its own color designation.

As visual deficiencies go, colorblindness poses few difficulties. At worst, it makes me question my judgments about color. Time and again, I’ve been told that color combinations I like actually clash. Thus I rarely shop without a friend, preferably someone who knows my wardrobe, and I’m always careful to mention my colorblindness when asked to comment on designs that incorporate color. Most of my shirts and sweaters are black, since black goes with everything.

Recently I learned of a website that simulates colorblindness. In my excitement I thought that the site would show me what normal-sighted people see, but instead it does the opposite, showing normal-sighted people what I see. (Go to www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/ and select “Protanomaly (low red).” Normal-sighted friends have called this a jolting experience, but I wouldn’t know about that.)

It occurs to me now that even if the site worked the way I wanted it to, I still wouldn’t see the colors as they appear to others. This is not about colorblindness but perception, which is always subjective. My eyes have a mechanical flaw that prevents them from fully processing red, but this seems less significant than how my associations for red differ from yours. Those kinds of differences can’t be represented on a website. In fact they can’t be represented anywhere.

I sense here another thing I’ve lost without ever really having had it.