“What color is this!?”
by Rene Terraza
“Black and whIte creates a strange dreamscape that color never can” -Jack Antonoff
Being a born Achromat, life as seen through my eyes is a gray-scale, both figuratively and literally, that's probably why the above quote resonates with me as much as it does. For context: Achromatopsia is a non-progressive and hereditary visual disorder which is characterized by the absence of color vision, decreased vision, light sensitivity, and nystagmus in someone. Their world consists of different shades of grey ranging from black to white.
Why is this relevant to writing?
It is, trust me, but first some background information.
I was never really the type of person to just impulsively pick up a book and start reading, or grab a pen and just pour my brains out onto a blank piece of paper for the sole sake of doing it; it just wasn't my thing.
For the most part, all the reading and writing I did was forced upon me by a teacher. Each assigned essay felt less like school work and more akin to a dictator’s absolute command. With prompts like: Why are cats better than dogs? And, How to use the internet, all following the same boredom inducing five paragraph format, I’d say it’s understandable why I had such a strong disdain for English.
Mathlete.
Future engineer.
STEM-bound.
Writer? Oh God no.
Some common things I've heard about me, I can't exactly disagree either. Without color I feel as though my brain has been hardwired to be analytic, literal, and calculative. It wasn't created for the conceptual and infinitely expanding themes of writing. As Robert Frost described the difference between scholars and poets in The Figure a Poem Makes, “Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs with cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately” (7). As a self identified “scholar” I found the denotative meaning of the world to outweigh the connotative and symbolic meanings found in books and poems alike.
If I could plug writing into a calculator, I would be Shakespeare.
If I could memorize writing like chess theory, I would be Hemingway.
But I can’t...why am I so infatuated with writing now then? I’ll get to it.
To paraphrase Robert Frost, Writing revolves around the principles of abstraction and conceptuality (1). Color is the perfect device for writers to exploit, they use color in the connotative sense to evoke emotion in the reader. White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and serenity. It is considered to be the color of perfection. Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.
The beauty in all of this to me is that I don't know what color is. I have never seen it and I probably never will --- still, when I read the words in black letters on a white piece of paper I feel the same emotions that any other reader would. It was not until I experienced being ostracized first hand by this that I discovered these feelings, books kept me company when I was alone, at a low point in my life, so I stuck with them. Becoming an avid reader eventually lead to a newfound appreciation for writing which I began dabbling in, this eventually transitioned into a hobby of sorts.
Nowadays I am the type of person to pick up a book and just start reading, I am the type of person to pick up a pick up a pen and write my heart out, but im still as analytic and calculative as I've ever been.
Though I do enjoy writing, I don't see myself as a great writer; I'm average at best, and I don't think that will ever change, as Stephen King put it in Toolbox, “while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one” (135). While I don't completely agree with his statement, it is pretty applicable to my situation. The best way to describe my writing is that it is either about nothing, or about everything-- no real inbetween. It is just a conglomerate of thoughts jotted down to form loose monologues, usually about how i'm feeling.
My writing is in every sense the opposite of good writing. I write purley for myself, I write in neurotic and emotional spasms in which cohesiveness is the least of my worries. Like I stated before it isn't the typical process of a proper writer…
- Think.
- Formulate.
- Execute.
- Revise
I’d say it is most comparable to the notes taken by Annie Dillard in The Death Of A Moth, “The note page is written in an incomprehensible calligraphy. It is full of markings and cross-outs which only she knows the meaning and purpose of. She even includes visual representation with the doodles in the margins” (10). That is the writing that I live for, genuinely human, not some formulaic piece of crap.
This essay is a perfect example of what im talking about, yeah it’s about something specific, but in retrospect it is honestly about absolutely nothing. I guess that can be identified as my “Style” of writing.
The Black ink and white page truly create something special…
It’s my anger and frustration
My sorrow and pain
My passion and desire
My nothing.
My everything
It’s all my writing.
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