Im sure we’ve all seen ‘The Dress’ and its colours that has been surfacing around the internet for a few days now. A friend had posted the photograph in our class group and suddenly everyone started commenting on it. From green and black to white and golden to everything in between. Everybody was claiming their colour to be correct and I was checking if someone else could see the same colours as I could. When I saw a few friends comment with the same view as mine, I felt relieved. Oh! How we need to belong somewhere and nobody wants to be the odd one out! Even if we were right, we need somewhere to belong and even when we’re wrong! Phew!
This phenomenon, already defined by science is a challenge to the common notion of ‘seeing is believing’. How hard is it to believe that what I am seeing is not what is real? How hard is it to accept that there is something completely different than what I can see? How easy is it to accept that someone else sees something completely different, regardless of the facts? Well, it is really hard. Our minds have been so formed that we cannot deny what we have seen is not real or that there could be someone who can see something entirely different out of the same space.
At first I felt weird when people said they could see a colour I didnt have a slight hint existed on the dress, but when science cleared up, I understood a little. Its hard to believe that our eyes can be tricky. But it reveals a fact of the human mind, of our temperaments and how we need to go and see beyond the normal horizon. Then shall we be able to fully understand one another. Imagine if science hadnt intervened to clear the mess, the debate would go on, just because what they see is not what we see, what we see is not what they see. To be right is supreme, but to comprehend divine.
The Wordcastle 