The New Sense

Sunday, April 21, 2002

Which is today. And I'm still basking in the glow, writing all this down while I can still remember. My mind is full of him. So's my body. I'm a bad girl. In half an hour I'm going to feel like shit. What an idiot. He just arrived in town, I don't know if I'll ever see him again, and I had sex with him without a condom. And I wasn't that drunk. There was just something different about him. I think the best word for it is one he used a lot last night: overwhelming.
We were starving when we woke up, which was good, because we had a mission, so there was no room for any weirdness. We made some eggs. And I really mean 'we'. He helped, without coming off like he was trying to impress me. He's so fucking great. Slow down. Slow down. You don't even know how to get in touch with him. But I've got a feeling I'll see him again.
I can only remember bits of last night's conversation, but this morning he was just fascinating. Here's what he said:
"Our view of the world is exactly that: a view. It is based overwhelmingly on the visual sense. Even people who are blind from birth grow up learning a language which is based on describing how things look. Most people don't even realise how their version of reality is skewed towards visual interpretation. Animals which use other senses more than sight, such as bats, build up a different model of the world in their brains and use it to negotiate reality. That's not too hard to understand. What is hard is the idea that our version of reality is no better than theirs. They have evolved to interpret reality using mainly one method and we have evolved to use mainly sight.
"We are convinced that our version of reality is accurate. Excepting optical illusions and mistakes, people think that what you see is what you get. What is out there can be described in visual terms. Even though an object can be described in all kinds of different ways (its weight, temperature, noise it makes, stickiness, speed, etc.) people almost always use visual information to describe things. That's why eyewitness evidence has such a powerful influence on a trial, even though all tests suggest that most people only selectively recall what they have seen, and that they interpret what they have seen based on all kinds of biases.
"There's nothing wrong with describing the world mainly through what you see, but it does mean that we miss things, just like bats miss things through mainly using sound. Judging by purely visual evidence it seemed obvious for thousands of years that the sun revolved around the Earth. More accurate observation eventually showed that the opposite is true. But it was still observation. Still evidence gained by looking."
At this point I jumped in with my "Ah-ha! How else could you get evidence about the sun? Not by listening to it or smelling it, that's for sure."
He had obviously had this conversation before though, because he answered, "That's what everyone thinks, because everyone is human and no one can imagine other senses than sight being of much use. Even the word 'imagine' is about creating an image in your mind. No, there are other ways. We have invented machines that can detect the sun by all kinds of different forms of radiation other than the visible spectrum. Stars give off radio waves and x-rays, they have magnetic fields, they have infra-red shifts which show their speed, they have gravity which bends light around them. There are loads of different ways that information about the sun can be gathered, and that's what scientists do. At least scientific instruments have freed us from a certain extent from the tyranny of sight."
Well. This wasn't my usual morning conversation topic. For one thing, he was at least ten times more awake than me. For another, I'm usually talking to one of the regulars at Olga's who says things like, "Know anyone who needs some cheap Indonesian furniture?" or "Did you hear about that fire up on St-Dominique?"
The tyranny of sight. Never heard that one before. I guess I must have been looking at him funny, because he suddenly started talking about how good the eggs were. I just put my hand on his and said, "I'm not much of a morning person." He nodded slowly and smiled that same sexy smile that first got me.
The rest of the breakfast was more peaceful. I was glad to see that he hadn't taken offence at my stopping his theorising. He asked if he could take a shower, and I asked him where he was staying. He just said, "With a friend up in Mile End." Again, I must have looked at him funny (Damn it! My face is an open book.) because he quickly added, "A guy who used to live out West."
There then followed a tiny bit of awkwardness as he said goodbye and hugged me. I'm not sure what that means. He hugged me, and I hugged him back. Then I grabbed his head and kissed him really hard on the lips. No Frenching, just a great big smackeroo. And we both said bye. Not, "See you," but "Bye." Oh well, I shouldn't try to think too much about any of this. I'll just bask in the glow.
So that's what I did for the rest of the day. I basked. I bathed. I snoozed. I mused. "The tyranny of sight." Weird guy. I like him.

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posted by Sara