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.
