We Can't Be Colorblind in a World of Incredible Hues

We Can't Be Colorblind in a World of Incredible Hues

Some colors are a challenge to describe. Like our official uniforms lately in local government.

Never mind the white shirt for Mondays which is straight white. Nothing to argue about there. It is neat to look at, yes, but boring in terms of creating office discord in relation to the discussion of the color wheel.

Trouble comes with the arrival of this shirt that I initially called dirty white, for it resembles the tint and hue of a dishrag that has seen better days at the sink. Or a moldering white shirt that has developed the patina, gesso, verdigris, or whatever you might call the combination of mildew, fungi, cyanobacteria, and lichen that organically grew on it.

This particular shirt reminds me of an old Ivory soap commercial, with kids mouthing colors nearly like white but not quite white -- terms we've never heard of before to be associated with color. One precocious tyke says "off-white," another "cream," another "stucco," another "ivory," and another kid possibly another technical term that I forgot.

None of these terms applies. It turns out that the "dirty white" shirt has the color called "egret," which strikes me as most precise, because I am familiar with the great egrets, small egrets, and cattle egrets that inhabit our creeks and rice fields.

I am proud to have learned a new word for a color that didn't occur to me before as having a unique existence in nature.

The other shirt assigned for another day is gray -- another easy one, no question about it.

Then we also have a navy blue shirt. Who doesn't know navy blue?

But the recent arrival of a green-looking one is another puzzle to solve because it is a more nuanced kind of green on the color gradient. It is not mint, not teal, certainly not avocado, and neither is it the usual foliage or photosynthesis green, not blue-green, and not quite the drab green of olives, but a green that has a striking sheen to it. As it turns out, it is called "military green," the dominant color of camouflage attire.

The most problematic one is this last shirt that looks dark with combined dark gray and bluish tints -- definitely not black, definitely not gray, but definitely neither blue nor navy blue. It is a complex, sophisticated blend of color no one can place.

People can't agree on what it is called, but the closest consensus is "dark gray." But it is not exactly dark gray, the color of graphite in a certain grade of pencils, because it has bluish tint. I can't find an equivalent of it in nature (or as they put it today, nature-equivalent).

A careful Internet search reveals the closest term for this color to be, no, not midnight blue, but charcoal blue. It's the only term that fits I almost heard "Eureka!" in my mind. Oh, the feeling of relief I had after that.

At this point, I suddenly remember my female officemates of long ago, who were able to tell the difference between chartreuse and green, between blue and turquoise and aquamarine, and between maroon and burnt sienna without the least difficulty.

A fairly well-known female novelist also comes to mind for she can readily tell the difference between violet, indigo, lilac, mauve, plum, magenta, and whatnot while I am pulling my hair trying to distinguish between them.

If we think all this is a trivial matter, it is not.

Because if we can distinguish between raspberry, cherry, ruby, and crimson, then we can make a distinction between a beret and bucket hat, we can tell the difference between an anorak and a cardigan.

We have therefore no excuse for not being able to tell apart the most challenging shades of gray in the vast market of ideas, philosophies, religions, beliefs.

...That is, unless we are afflicted with what they call cognitive dissonance or being in an unconscious state of denial.

Alas, part of being human is to be in a state of denial -- a protective wall we often build around us, unconsciously, to avoid getting hurt by the harsh realities of life.

But reality has a way of biting us in the face, sooner or later, so we eventually tear down our wall we ourselves have built. Hopefully, it won't be too hurting or too late by the time we let our guards down, cease our self-imposed blindness, and open our eyes, and see colors once again for what they are: a delicate graduation, or gradient, or gradation of hues and tones, tints and temperatures, depending on the refraction of light.

By then, we open our eyes to know that a pigeon is not a dove, a crow is not a raven, a heron is different from an egret, Dagupan City's Bonuan milkfish has distinct characteristics from a non-Bonuan bangus, a dialect is different from a language, Sunni is not the same as Shia, Pangasinan is quite distinct from Ilocano, pornography is not the same as art, licentiousness is a lot different from the exercise of freedom of expression. Etc. etc.

When we see the shades of truth (and untruth) in the shades of colors (or lack thereof in black and white), it should be all-natural for us see distinctions that we can't see, or don't want to see, for the longest time.