Tuesday, May 23, 2006

What would Life Be Without Images?

The senses, all of them, help make up the holographs we percieve as our world which the Zen tells us it is all an illusion. Yet our brain "know" otherwise. Our brain takes all those smells, sounds, touches, tastes and sights and synthesises a reality to which we can relate. Take any one of those elements away and the reality changes. I cannot imagine how "reality"" appears to one who is deaf or blind. This morning I had an uncomfortable hint.
When I sit down to dump a blog on this site I usually begin by rummaging through the hundreds of images I have captured and stored on the computer. Sometimes I am looking for one to help express an idea I already know I want to rant about. Often, however, I am looking for an image that will stimulate the thought for the day. Today was like that, I needed an image to jump start me. So what happens, the blog server refuses to upload the image. Suddenly, I am blind, and my reality is distorted. Suddenly, I am like an Italian trying to talk with my hands tied behind my back.
How do I get my pithy point across if I have no picture to enter into evidence? How much more will I have to write now that I don't have a picture that's worth a 1,000 words? I cannot transmit smells to you. Same with touch and taste, other than suggesting some analagies.
Hold on, I may have blindly stumbled onto something, I am selling memory short.

I all have a gazillion images stored in our brains. In fact, many of them are holographs complete with the memory of the feel, sound, etc. of the image. All that is necessary is that Itake the time to rummage through those files up in my cranial vault, and I can recapture that moment I completed my first roll, the day I graduated med school or any of an endless number of past events.

Hell, who needs pictures?

No comments: