Synesthetizing Reality
Do you also see that A is obviously red, scarlet red I'd say? I is surely yellow, but not that bright, more like a ray of spring sunlight. E is light blue and almost transparent, and B is pink or violet at times.
Not all letters have equally distinctive colours. For example, I still cannot clearly make out what colour K is. No matter how hard I try, K remains elusive, though it sounds slightly metallic.
Anyway, since childhood I've enjoyed this game of the mind. It has always been fun. And A has always been scarlet red, just like the other letters kept their colours — if only global politics had this kind of stability.
I was surprised when, already as an adult, I found out that this was actually not just a funny game of my imagination. It even has a scientific name, synesthesia, and 1–4% of people around the world are synesthetes. Should I mention how proud I am to belong to this oddly exclusive club?
To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what use it has, but anyway, it's still fun. There's no practical application in this world of ordinary mortals, no chance to monetize this extraordinary talent, or even charm your crush with its help. Well, at least you can celebrate your gift in poetry, just like Arthur Rimbaud did in his Vowels.
Things get even stranger when my grapheme–colour synesthesia mixes with the spatial–temporal kind. Sounds too complicated, but it's exciting in practice. You don't simply exist at some point in time — you actually see this piece of time. Just like you see this cup of coffee gone cold while trying to figure out why Wednesdays feel like the highest point of the week.
I can never remember the birthdays of even my closest friends, but I always know that this particular date is located 40 degrees south-east of me. Don't ask how this is calculated or what's going on with my inner compass. How does it convert dates into locations and peacefully coexist with my inborn terrible sense of direction?
What I can say for sure is that life is never boring with these settings built into me.
It's actually an interesting thing: the reality is so multi-layered. But while we live our boring adult lives full of responsibilities, dos and don'ts, problem-solving and other grey little chaos, we only have time to notice the most grounded, material side of it. Or do we?
Chairomai