Viewing Life in Color

Written March 14, 2014

How do we know we all see the same color? I mean, sure, we all say the same words, "blue is blue", "red is red"...but what if my BLUE is your RED? What if in my eyes, I see the sky as the color purple, but you see the sky as the color yellow, and we both end up calling that color "BLUE."

What if we all see colors differently? Some people are indeed color blind, so how do we KNOW us humans all see the colors in life the same way? We don't actually know that we do. I mean, who said we do? Do we really know? We are all raised to say the sky, the water, the color of my jeans – are the same color: BLUE.  But I mean, I could also see your color green as the sky, the water and the color of my jeans.

Can we describe the color blue to each other? Sure we can. The sky during the day is LIGHT blue. Simple as that. But, perhaps my LIGHT BLUE is your dark orange? It started from how we were taught – to say the color it's named, no matter what color we may actually see. The way I see dark colors could be the way you see light colors... we may all call it the same – but we may all see something different.

Makes you think. What IS the color BLUE? We all have a different perspective on our colors. We all may see the world differently, in different colors – and we don't even realize it.

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Above is something I jotted down when I was 19 years young. I first thought about this theory with some coworkers in the break-room while I was working as an intern at Walt Disney World. I read it now years later, and I think about how this perspective about color does captures the real essence of how everyone may see the world differently than one another. It reminds me to keep open to others perspectives – and perhaps, you should too.