Chromophobic minimalists need to be stopped
- Alliesthesia: wanting for varying sensory stimulation
Achromatopsia
Can the world be joyful without colour? I wasn't sure until I came across a story relayed by Dr. Oliver Sacks about a trip he took in 1994 to Pinegelap, an island where many natives have a persistent genetic defect that leaves them completely unable to see colour. Sacks brings along with him on the trip a Norwegian scientist named Knut Nordby, who also suffers from the severe colour blindness, or achromatopsia, that afflicts many of the islanders. At one point, the travel party encounters a soaking storm, leaving behind a stunning rainbow. Sacks describes Nordby's impression of the rainbow as "a luminous arc in the sky" and goes on to share Nordby's joyful tales of other rainbow she has seen: double rainbows and even a complete rainbow circle. In the end, Sacks concludes that the visual world of the colour blind is "if impoverished in some ways, in others quite as rich as our own."
Going on winter walks in Canada has me wondering:
What if we woke up in a world where colour no longer existed?
If we had complete achromatopsia — total absence of colour vision?
Could a black and white world still sustain our appetite for joy and beauty?
