Seeing White
Illustration by Tianxing Wan. With four eyes scanning in two directions, a whirligig beetle twirls on the water’s surface, scrawls rapidly, looks up for wing flash or down to navigate its place in the drought pond.
No matter what images pour into the storm drain of our eyes, we remain stuck in our own sliver of sight.
On my laptop, I watch riots blossom on an animated map like raindrops on parched concrete, across continents, over decades. From my office in a segregated city near the US-Mexico border, I try to map my relation to these events, while clouds gather on mountains to the east.
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Ancient Greeks formulated two major theories to explain vision. The first postulated the eye sent out light rays and took them back into the mind. The second imagined that objects emanated rays that entered the eye.
Both schools of thought relied upon the understanding that something within the eye—an “internal fire” (according to Plato) or light or rays—allowed the eye to be receptive to external fire or light or rays produced by the world beyond it as summarized by the adage: “like is known by like.”
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In economics, a Harmonized System refers to the assignment of a standardized code to facilitate the exchange of goods and products: across nations and trade zones a rose is a rose, a computer chip is a computer chip: barcode to barcode, like to like.
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While I sweat on the couch, my infant daughter screamed and cried. In weeks that stretched to months after her birth she cried often because she was tired, because she was wet, because we lay her in her crib, because she was bored or angry or hungry. While I sweat on the couch, she cried because my husband, Farid, was trying to put her to sleep, and she wanted me.
