I'm colorblind.
I've known this since I was very little.
It caused a great deal of stress in my early life. It got in the way of education, I was made fun of constantly by other kids.
Two things came out of that.
I learned that I should not be afraid of it, or ashamed. It is part of me, I'm not unique, and I should have fun with it. So I did, I learned to make it into a funny thing to bring up and joke around.
I also learned that colors are not important... or maybe I should clarify, that no color is MORE important. Since colors are simple attributes of materials, they become as important as texture, reflectiveness, smell, bounciness and so on. And that is to say, color is not an important identifier of anything. So I stopped paying attention to them. I only identify color when called upon, or when looking at personal preference (I love yellow and black)
We still live in a world that gives out too much value to identifiers. Racism, sexism, prejudice. Anything like that will judge something to be better than the others. Black is bad, so bad that we can't call someone black. Being a man is good, good to the point that the world is full of advantages geared towards benefiting men.
We need to stop treating any identifier as anything else but a way to identify a person.
The tricky part is, removing distinction, without removing value, is complicated. Very hard to do.
I may not care for what color is an object, but I'm still vastly aware that everything has a color. I will still make choices based on my personal preferences, but at least with colors, I won't act like the color of the object makes it better or worse. After all, liking black puts you in constant attrition with how black is evil, for villains, for monsters, for sad and loneliness in most media.
That is a great exercise for me. Constantly avoiding those stereotypes, light is good, dark is evil in games.
The thing is, being dark, woman, tall, fat are still identifiers, they mean something. We can't ignore those attributes, if we did, there would be no distinction.
And that is the issue.
I know proper colorblind people can live perfect normal happy lives. But the life without colors is a bit worse.
As a game developer, and a fanatic player, I'm aware of how much difference color and sound can make to a game. The lack of colors or sound, can MEAN something, but when they don't, it is just a miserable experience.
Think of something you enjoy, a sensation. Be it looking at the beautiful colors of a field of flowers, feeling the warmth of a hug from someone you love, the smell of coffee in the morning, the taste of that delicious family meal or even the sweet melodies of your favorite composer.
Now imagine, just try, what it would be, if you could not tell the difference from one to another, from the good, to the bad.
Not sure people can imagine this, without experiencing this in some area. But then again, I don't recommend experiencing this.
I would just like that people could understand.
Understand how it is important to have those differences. To know that those identifiers exists. Because only when they exist, you can appreciate what you like.
For someone that can only taste rocks, that delicious lasagna tastes either like rocks, or nothing at all, that person can't enjoy that part of life, can't prefer one food over another.
Nothing is the same, everything is unique, but nothing is more important, what is important, is that we have the identifiers to tell apart what makes us happy, and what doesn't.
Chapter Three – Page Thirteen
14 years ago
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