Monday, July 29, 2013

Abstract Shapes and Superhumanity

       I'm on vacation. So my head's everywhere. Thusly, dear reader, welcome to the pits of hell :). As you read, I invite you to ponder- Do you know any superhumans? How are you a superhuman? Tell me in the comments!

      Yesterday, I was in the family car listening to music when I started thinking about the Spy vs. Spy comic from Mad Magazine. And how the shapes of the Spys' heads has always reminded me of Hate. And vice versa. I sketched the shape in my notebook:



Then I sketched some more shapes that I connect to Hate:


And then all this happened:


As I sat there furiously visualizing abstract concepts, tearing out pages, and realizing I plunge further into insanity with each passing moment, I remembered one day on the school bus when my brain exploded. 

      Bit of background. Synesthesia (the cognitive disorder) has always fascinated me , for a number of reasons. As a small child, I wouldn't have understood what was disorderly about strongly associating colors/sounds/etc. with numbers/situations/etc. It would have seemed familiar, perfectly logical, and even downright awesome. That way of perceiving had been underscoring my entire young life beautifully. That was one of the best things about being a kid- how my brain didn't really care to separate vermillion from the number 5, or the feeling of a fever from the sound of clinking metal. I learned about synesthesia  later on, when I was about 12. Let's get on the bus now.

    I had a friend-she's called "Inky" from now on-who, if she didn't have to be doing anything else, was definitely reading. If she DID have to be doing something else, she was still probably reading. It is because Inky was reading one day on the school bus that I discovered synesthetic perception was not always a poetic, colorful walk in the woods. The book Inky was reading on that particular field trip was the story of a girl living with synesthesia. Inky did occasionally grow tired of literature and turned to trying to get people to understand what the heck she was talking about. I FREQUENTLY grew tired of trying to get people to understand what the heck I was talking about and turned to literature (At this point in time, I don't think Inky or I had quite mastered the art of concealing our respective cases of wonderful, kaleidoscopic insanity). Through a strange an unexpected exchange of words and bus ride agendas I do not exactly recall , she ended up bookless, chattering abstractly, and not really sitting down all the way. I ended up confused, silent, and fully seated with Inky's book on my lap. I opened it up.
    I don't think I got too far. But the first quarter of the book was enough to jar me a little. In my mind, the book's protagonist (and anyone else with synesthesia) was diagnosed with a disorder just for thinking differently. Also, I had a burning doubt, something I was certain ought be in the back of absolutely everyone's mind- What if some "disorders" are actually gifts, and we're ostracizing superheroes? Or, even more chillingly, what if all these supposed victims of cognitive malfunction are right, and everyone else is just blind? I could not concentrate on the book, and was a little upset until I got home and told my dad about this horrible inconsistency I'd released into my psyche. To be honest, I remained skeptical even after he assured me that "no, you don't have synesthesia. You can turn off your synesthetic thinking if you have to. It doesn't impact your ability to function out in the world". But it was a little too late. I'd opened up a wormhole that was too immense for my developing 12-year-old-mind to handle. One thing led to another and I eventually arrived at "What if right and wrong don't even exist? What if it all depends on  perception?". I was soon feverishly pondering a scenario in which most people had synesthesia, and there were kids in schools getting made fun of for thinking the sound of a hammer was colorless. Now, this kind of idea would just be an interesting adventure. But then, it was the end of the world. I mean, my skull had only fully fused about a year before. I was overwhelmed.
    These days, it makes sense to me that Synesthesia is considered a disorder. But hold on.

 I actually have a firm belief that the following is the case, but for the sake of fairness and open-mindedness I'll use the phrase "What if".

      What if the only reason some folks have to struggle with their abnormalities is because "normality" is entirely fabricated? Do animals ever have synesthesia (google doesn't know)? And if so, does it matter to them? And what if certain "disorders" are only a problem because in our society, majority always rules? Imagine a world where the fact that everyone thinks totally differently is not only common knowledge, but expected. Where different IS normal. 
    On this blog, in my head, in my life, everything is linked to the next thing even if it's in an abstract way. Kind of a sporadic linearity. I'm going to ignore for a moment the likelihood that this entire post is probably one big soup of "HAHaHahahaHa-Shapes-Society-Conflict-Colors-Sounds-giggledygiggledyHAhaWUt?". In fact, I challenge you, dear reader, to discover the sneaky little metaphor that's lurking around in here. 

      Shout out to the Superhero Graphic Novel fans. This is a "Save the Superhero" PSA. We comic fans  know that superheroes have it rough. They are indeed SUPER human. They're freaks. Their lives are dramatic and complicated. 

     I'm going back to the SUPER human thing for a second. Those sad heroes are humans, amplified. But not always in the areas folks want them to. They've been told all their lives that they're freaks. That's part of why Doctor McCoy doesn't hop out of bed singing "I'm an extremely intelligent human, but I also can climb really well and I'm covered in bright blue fur". Blue fur and monkey feet are not normal, and not something anyone else wants to use. But that shouldn't matter. People who don't try to hurt other people should just be allowed to be, even if they struggle with Geometry and they have a big gross mole on their face. That big gross mole could be getting in the way of people noticing a knack for screenwriting or quantum physics.   Tragic superheroes are symbolic  for lots of these real live people. People who get bullied or looked at weird or have no friends. People like the girl from that book I started to read. It's wrong. No one deserves that. 
     And goddamnit, a superhero should have some friends. They're frikin' superheroes!! So learn people's stories. Go form a team of formerly friendless, sulky superheroes with crooked noses and/or marfans syndrome and serious acting skills and/or original designs for a highly functional engine. We're all endowed with incredible gifts (or mutations) and we're all easy to misunderstand and mislabel in a world of close- mindedness. Dear reader, I invite you to open your mind. Hear orange. Say hi to wolverine. Write an equation using 18 different carefully chosen shades. Realize that the gnarled birthmark on your foot is probably a tiny map of somewhere in the universe that doesn't exist yet (or does in another one). Know that right and wrong might just be relative.
       And know that Nostradamus loves you.

Go forth and be wonderful.