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Sunday, April 17, 2011

When Wheels are Turned

For a long time I have always thought about this theory of the turning color wheel.  Not many people know about it and I'm not even sure if there is a name for it but I'll do my best to explain it.  On the right is a standard version of the color wheel.  It goes in an order that can explain which colors match best and complement each other.  Everyone, aside from people that are color blind, can recognize the primary colors as red, yellow, and blue.  This is where I'm about to blow your mind. So be warned.  What if everyone's color wheels are different?  What if through someone else's eye's all the colors looked different than they do to you?  I'm not talking about being color blind, I'm talking about being color turned.  What I mean by that is that someone else's color wheel may be turned a half rotation so that the colors are in a different order.

This is where you may be saying, well then they would say the sky is green.  But that isn't true.  Since we have all been taught since we were born that whatever color we see the sky is must be blue, we could all in fact be seeing different colors.  So John Doe may see the sky the way I see green.  But to him this would be normal.  The second argument is that everyone knows what colors match.  Even though that isn't entirely true (I know from experience) there is still an answer.  Because the color wheel has just been turned, the colors would still match, just in a different way than other people see it.  Below is an example of how it would work.

Now I'm not trying to win the Nobel Prize here for some half baked theory that no one really understands very well.  Rather what I am trying to do is provide a better example than walking in someone else's shoes.  If you really think this deeply about it, you have no clue how everyone else see's the world, well, because you've only seen it through you eyes.  Perspective is a powerful thing.  It can play tricks on you, but you can also fall into the trap of thinking that the way you see things is just how everyone else sees them too.  It's difficult to have the presence of mind to stop and think if we're doing this.  But the people that can sense how other people perceive the world are some of the most successful people in the world.

So next time you get mad at someone, or someone hurts your feelings, or things aren't going your way just take the time to think how everyone else sees it.  Look at the situation through your bosses eyes, or your girlfriends, or your parents, or the homeless man's, or the African kids, and just try to think of how different things are for them.  They say you never know a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes, but to me, you'll never know a person until you've seen a day through their eyes.

2 comments:

  1. Are you kidding me!? I swear we were suppoeed to be twins at birth. This SAME concept has floated around in my mind for years. Crazy. I'm so glad you get it.

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  2. Haha did I explain it in somewhat of a coherent fashion?

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