Life Lessons from a Colorblind Six-Year-Old

I’m really good at arguing.  In fact, I’ve been told many times that I should be a lawyer.  Teachers mentioned it along the way, my parents joked about it, and I even had an academic advisor in college tell me to abandon ship and go to law school.  Maybe they were right, but I have zero regrets. I could never wear a suit every day.

As luck would have it, I still get to practice a little during our argument writing unit. We teach students how to develop a claim, support it with reasons, and to provide evidence for their reasoning.  When we research, we talk about finding credible and reliable sources.  Who wrote it?  When did they write it?  Why did they write it?  We teach our students that in order for evidence to be worthwhile, in order for a claim to have any validity, it has to be trustworthy.

Lately, I’ve been wondering: are the claims you believe based on credible and reliable sources?

Specifically, are the claims you believe about yourself and others based on truth?

Marshall is colorblind.* It’s so interesting to watch him navigate a world where an obvious truth most of us take for granted, distinguishing between colors, is such a gamble for him.  He really hates to be wrong (don’t we all) and has spent all six of his years on this planet memorizing the colors of as many objects as possible in hopes of not getting it wrong.  In fact, he’s so good at memorizing that we’ve had many people (one optometrist included) doubt that he is actually colorblind.  If a color is labeled with the word, he identifies it correctly.  If it’s an object that has been previously labeled for him, he gets it right.  Marshall’s strategy is more or less a color-identifying version of echolocation.  Anytime he encounters a new object, nine times out of ten he will ask whoever is close by what color it is, and then store the information away in some sort of elaborate catalog in his brain.  It’s wild.

When he’s feeling adventurous, safe, or a little bit confident, Marshall might even venture a guess.  “This is… blue.  Right, Mom?!”  The hope in his voice and the gleam in his eyes make me want to lie to him every time he’s wrong.  No one likes to be the one to gently correct him when the object is purple, not blue.  When the marker is green, not orange.  When the square is pink, not grey.  No matter how many times he gets it wrong, it doesn’t seem to get any less disappointing.

Here’s the funny thing about colors, and about reality.  In his mind, Marshall truly believes that pink is grey.  That orange is green, or vice versa.  With each gentle correction, he’s starting to realize his instinct isn’t always reliable.  But that hasn’t always been the case—he used to argue each color claim with tenacity, hoping that maybe we were the ones who were wrong. 

Last year around this time, we drove past a car dealership with pink balloons on each of the cars in the lot, presumably for Valentine’s Day.  As Marshall pointed them out, I said, “oh yeah, Bud, I see those pink balloons!” 

“Actually, they’re blue-ish pink, right Mom? Right?!”

At age 5, Marshall was aware that he often called colors by the wrong name.  He knew there was always a chance he was getting it wrong: but that didn’t stop him from desperately wanted to be right.  Wanting me to affirm his reality.  To him, those balloons were blue, and he wanted so badly for me to reassure him that what he was seeing was real.  That maybe we were both right—maybe the monochromatic balloons were blue and pink somehow.

Oftentimes, I think we behave the same way in the bigger, more high-stakes realities of our lives.  Is that really an opportunity ahead of me, or a dead-end?  Am I really cut out for this?  Is this feeling I’m experiencing based on truth, or misperception?  We perceive our reality, and when spoken in the confines of our own brain, it’s mushy and grey and unsupported.  But when we speak aloud what we’re thinking, when we seek trusted counsel or written truth, we have relief from the weight of questioning.  Much as Marshall relies on labels and verbal confirmation, we too can rely on written truth and the affirming words of our peers when we are unsure of our reality. 

And the thing is, sometimes we will be wrong.  Sometimes the balloon will be pink, not blue.  Sometimes the truth we want so badly to be true just isn’t.  Truth isn’t always neat and tidy, and it doesn’t always fit nicely into the pre-packaged lives we build for ourselves, thinking we know best.  The truth of the Bible, in particular, can feel comforting when it supports our perceptions and rattling when it conflicts with our emotions.

Our emotions are real.  The pain of getting it wrong is real.  The uncertainty of taking our best guess at reality can be unnerving—especially without secondary evidence.   But just as getting it wrong can hurt, not taking a stand, not making a claim, not investigating the evidence can be just as costly. 

I wonder if there are doubts that reign as truths in your mind?
Or truths you might be hiding from?
I wonder if you know you’re here on purpose for a purpose that likely involves risk?

Let’s take a lesson from Marshall: we all need to catalog the colors around us, stockpiling truths for a rainy day.  Because we’re bound to get it wrong sometimes. Bound to feel a little lost or shaken or rattled when the balloons we swore were blue turn out to be pink.   And the truth is, there may just be claim we were born to fight for.

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” -Isaiah 40:8

*Marshall is actually color deficient.  Colorblind means you can only see black and white—people who are color deficient are unable to distinguish between certain colors.  There’s your fun fact for the day.  You’re welcome.