June 23, 2000

synesthetes, and the comfortably numb

got dilbert’s principle and came across this other interesting book from strand. its called the man who could taste shapes, and its about synesthesia, a condition where the person is able to identify with not one but a combination of senses (synes-the-sia ? union of senses) at any given time.

suddenly i felt i could somehow relate to many things written in the book

…like how my description about the way i look at things strikes to most ppl as funny; or each time a person i’m introduced to or meet after a long time appears to me as an animal or bird (gourav looks like an ostrich, gulnar – like a cat, vijay – a croc, jace, ganesh and me – a sparrow or even an eagle, prachi – a woodpecker, sudhir – a camel, and so on.)

…or the time when i told gourav that the stars on a clear night in dalhousie looked like dandruff, and that umesh drives his jalopy just like the way he speaks.

…or the way i react to colours, how they take shapes in my head regardless of whether my eyes are open or shut, thanks to which i can also paint spontaneously

…or how music almost never fails to create colourful patterns in my head. i remember asking sumod and ganesh about varying music frequencies, and if i can generate a pattern first and then wrap the music around it accordingly.

…or how i have this uncanny ability to remember numbers (although i’m terrible at math), by simply associating it with a pattern.

am i really a synesthete? or is this just a variation of that ‘condition’?

speaking about ‘conditions’, i’ve been running through the silk-list discussions and i wonder how intellectual can their discussions really get. a single statement casually written by someone becomes the most talked-about subject!
be it john galt and the others’ identity crisis, a few books that were borrowed by someone, or even an individual’s decision to maintain an online journal.

now take the people in my office…i was told yesterday by the hr person pratap that not many would understand the high standards i set for myself, or the standards at chip (!!) and that that’s why i cannot adjust to the envt in itspace! what a theory!

so who’s to blame? is this another ‘condition’ i’m told i’m going through, or is this another one of the strange mysteries of life?

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