Referring to the previous
UP post when I posed a question:
Have you ever had the kind of feeling when you know that you will never get to achieve something?
As a matter of fact, I do...
Quite some time ago, I have mentioned about my colour blind briefly in my
Live The Dream...Start Flying post. I would like to explain further over here to give a better picture on my scenario...
Since I was young, I have a great passion of flying. I remembered when I was in standard 5 and standard 6, where we studied at the third and top floor of the old building in Kwang Hwa Primary School, every time when a plane flew by, I would definitely stopped in my steps and looked in awe and amazement...
I have always dreamt of becoming a pilot, but when I knew that I am short-sighted when I was 12, my dreams were shattered. As I moved on to secondary school, still holding on to the thought of doing something related to flying, I thought of going into aeronautical science, designing airplanes and rockets. Starting from Form 4, I even borrowed a university textbook on airplane design from a friend to read during my leisure time, constantly surfed the NASA site, and wrote in my little green book that one of my life dreams is to work for the NASA...
But, when I was preparing for my driving test after SPM, I realized that I have a little bit of color deficiency, which in another way means color blind. To be frank, I couldn't recognize those numbers. All I could see are just dots! That was not the first time that I realized I have color blind. Since kindergarten, I have difficulties in selecting the right colours to paint or to colour pictures. My mother and my sister always laughed at my wrong choice of clothes as I just couldn't mix and match the colors sensibly! Before that, I didn't care less this minor hiccup didn't affect me much. The worst case was just not able to play Bubble Popper well...=P
However, this time, the fact of me being color blind really sink in deep and it hit me hard that it is something which I can never change or improve on. I remembered staring at the computer screen at home for hours trying to figure out and eventually broke out in tears. I bumped into this brick wall...a brick wall so huge that I could never go into my dream field and even might made me disabled to drive! I was devastated.
Anyway, I still managed to get my driving license. Wonder how? I bet, only those with color blind could find the loophole of the system. No bribing or anything unethical! In fact, the 8 questions set for the color blind test were randomly picked from a question bank of about 60-70 questions. And each question has 4 specific numbers to choose from. So, by memorizing each of the patterns of the 4 numbers and the feel of the colors, I could answer them almost as accurately as those normal people. Even so, I was dripping in cold sweat when attempting the 8 color blind questions during the formal evaluation. A single mistake would instantly led to failure. I almost felt like shouting in joy after I clicked the SUBMIT button and saw 8/8!!
As for my dreams, I just need to find a different way in pursuing my passion of flying, which I have started working on it. Handgliding at 2000 feet at the Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Alabama and parasailing above Bali Island are one of the few feats making my dreams come true...
"The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
~ The Last Lecture
Well, as for now, I have fully accepted my minor disability and lived with it. Lately, I was curious about how serious my color blindness is, actually...
I searched around the web to find some relevant tests. I have given up on those "dots" thingy (Ishihara Test Plates)! Don't ever ask me to do that as I could never get it right...
Before starting the test...
After arranging them according to hue order based on what I "think" is correct...
My results...The lower the score the better where 0 is the perfect score and I got 115!
I am a Deuteranopia, not some kind of dinosaur, which is lacking of the medium-wavelength cones and is unable to distinguish between colors in the green-yellow-red section of the spectrum. To a Deuteranopia like me, the names red, orange, yellow, and green really mean very little aside from being different names that every one else around him seems to be able to agree on. Similarly, violet, lavender, purple, and blue, seem to be too many names to use logically for hues that all look alike.
This is one of the rarer forms of colorblindness making up about 1% of the male population. I felt special as I am considered as 0.05% of the whole world's population. (Assuming male and female are 50%-50%)
I am cool with it! Think from a positive perspective, 99.95% of the world will never see the same world I see the world...
P/S: In fact, one could see how a color blind like me sees the world...
CLICK HERE!
Believe it or not? While I was writing this post, a friend sent me this song: 灰色的彩虹...=.=!!! Coincidence?
