It Is All Relative

Recently, my good friend Scott discovered that he is severely colorblind. At the age of 23. I was standing in his bedroom while he was getting ready for us to head out to the bar for the evening when the infamous conversation occurred:

Scott: “I think I’m going to go with this burgundy shirt tonight.”
Me: “…Do you even know what burgundy is?”
Scott: “Yeah, it’s this dark reddish color.”
(Points to the shirt he was now wearing)
Me: “That shirt is dark gray, man.”

Turns out he had been wearing a dark gray Rooster Fish Brewing shirt I had given him for weeks thinking it was some dark shade of red. It was his favorite shirt!

You can imagine what followed. A couple days’ worth of us harassing him about how he saw things differently than everyone else. Failed online colorblindness tests. Teasing him for the fact that when he is driving and the road is wet it looks red to him (he thought it was some sort of strange chemical reaction).

His world of colors is different than ours. Not knowing he was colorblind, he learned that a banana is yellow. But the “yellow” he sees might actually be purple. So he sees purple and his brain says “yellow.”

My insanity (or randomness) leads me to believe that I have a similar disorder where I see common things that trigger my brain to spew random thoughts that have little to no association with those things. I could probably entertain a shrink for hours that wants to play a word association game with me. She says “love,” I say “garden weasel.” She says “childhood,” I say “gravy helmet.” She says “This is costing you $300 per hour,” I say “Apple Jacks.”

I immediately had a strange fantasy where Scott exists in a psychedelic world where the colors are all fucked up and there are unicorns prancing about offering him snacks and insider trading tips. Oh, what I would give to live in Scott’s world of purple bananas.

What we experience is completely relative to what we are. We all know what pain is. But we don’t all experience it in the same way. Some would say that we all have a different tolerance for pain… and that’s bullshit. That’s a scientific-sounding way of saying that “pain” is a general term for a bunch of unique experiences.

What we feel depends so much upon what we are and what we’ve been. Imagine three bowls of water. One is icy cold. One is room temperature. One is near boiling. If you stick your hand in the cold bowl first and then the room temperature bowl, it feels hot. But if you start with the hot bowl and move to the room temperature bowl, it feels cold.

What the fuck? I guess I have no idea what is hot and what isn’t. Which is a bad quality to have when alcohol and unattractive girls are lurking. Right Rocks?

That middle bowl of water feels like a different temperature depending on what precedes it. The same holds true for any other sensation you’ve ever had. That’s the entire theory behind comic relief. “Relief” implies a means to give you a break from all the tragic ones. But it is also making the tragic ones feel much more tragic.

Think of the ramifications! Your mood or the five minutes immediately before meeting someone could completely alter your relationship with them. Maybe you’ve met the girl/boy of your dreams already. But two minutes before meeting them you dropped a piece of toast on the floor butter-side down. Fuck toast for destroying your one true chance at happiness. Perhaps the person you’re with now isn’t ideal for you but you were in a good mood when you met him/her because you found $20 in a random pair of pants that you usually don’t wear. The most significant thing in your love life could be toast or pants. It’s all relative.

All your experiences are just yours. No matter how much someone tried to recreate your experience, it would not and could not be the same.

I envy Scott, because at least he knows one of the things that makes his experience unique. Purple banana unicorn land. For me it’s just a complete guessing game. I’m random, but no more unique than you are.

How does gay sex work with unicorns, anyway, what with the horns and all?

It’s all relative.