Lenses

[Scribbly]

Well... admittedly, it's been a while since I contributed anything, but this is an idea that I've had for a while after reading some of the ways the BIP project has gone. So, I figure I'll throw it out here and see if anyone finds it useful. Though it doesn't use the Black Iron Prison metaphor directly, I think it shares a lot of themes in common. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


Every day, I wake up, and I'm blind. I can see, but I can't see anything clearly. I see a blur of colours, the walls of my room and the furniture blobs and shapes hazy and indistinct in the wash of fuzz. This doesn't last for long, of course. I reach out, I grab my glasses, and as the lenses slide into place, so does my world. Everything becomes clear again. Everything makes sense.

Every few months I have to go and have an eye exam. Generally, my eyesight has gotten fractionally worse. I'm seeing just a tiny, little bit less clearly than I was when I first got the glasses. It's strange, because it happened so gradually that I rarely even realize that it's the case. But it is. Undeniably so, as, when I get the new glasses, everything comes into sharp focus. And compared to my older pair, it is like being given a whole new set of eyes. Colours are sharper, I can read further, see more. And, of course, this becomes normal. And eventually, it slips back to normality, and then the months pass, and the process repeats itself.

I always find it interesting, when I'm getting my eyes checked, the effect that the lenses have on the way I'm seeing things. The optician adjusts them, and I see better, worse, not at all. Red becomes sharper than green, or green sharper than red. This is, when I think about it, disturbing. Because although I think that when I leave, I'll be on the way to seeing normally again, I do wonder how closely what I'll be seeing matches what the rest of the world will be seeing.

Because, in reality, although my glasses have a very literal pair of lenses, and change what I'm seeing directly, I wonder how much I'm missing because of the other lenses that colour my perceptions. The little bits and pieces of my personality that I label 'me'. They change, over time, of course- as I develop and am subjected to new experiences. But, there is no optician to come and correct them, no easy way for me to tell whether what I'm percieving as my reality is anything close to what the truth of the matter would be.

But then, what if there were no lenses? Well, without my glasses, I'm lost. I see only hazy, indistinct blurs, and I can't make sense of anything. Would this be what it would be like to try and see the world without any lenses at all? With no way to focus my perceptions, perhaps, I'd percieve nothing at all.

[faust]

very nice. I've never seen the sinusoidal nature of clarity and perception and having to refresh ideas to keep them from falling apart put so well. and I can really identify with the ambiguity of not putting my own tint on stuff, which has always been the feature I have disliked the most about me (it ends up causing me hesitation to the point till its too late to matter).

[Kaienne]

That's a really excellent metaphor... It reminds me of one my friend 0033cc once told me, where he compared consciousness to a ship at sea. A ship on the ocean will decay, will take damage, will eventually begin to fall apart, and while it can be repaired, the only things that can be used to repair it are things that are already on the ship; sails can be patched, boards replaced, but those sails have to be patched with clothing or other sails, the boards, with crates, and so on.

[Idem]

I really like the metaphor. 

[Payne]

My EYES!




....Are fucked, because I haven't bought a new pair of glasses for about 4 years. Thanks for reminding me.



I like the metaphor a lot.

[LMNO]

It definately works.



"My Third Eye needs bifocals."

[Scribbly]

I'm glad you guys approve. 

I'm not sure quite where to take this concept, now that I've got the basics of it down on paper. But, it's gotten me thinking again, at the very least. And that can't be a bad thing.

"My Third Eye needs bifocals."

Love this, by the way. Cool quote 

[AFK]

Are you Kopyleft?

In otherwords, can I throw this on the wiki?

edit:  which is here in case you haven't seen it yet:  www.blackironprison.com

[Scribbly]

Yup- I'm KopyLeft, go for it.   

[AFK]

Sweet.  I'm trying to spruce the place up a bit and this will do nicely.  Thanks.