Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Insights into the aspects of color

Red is good. Red is bold. Red is my favorite color.  Now what does the color red have to do with a book?  Well that completely depends on the book of which you want me to explain its relevance to.  If you ask me what the color red describes in Harry Potter, well it is obvious.  It is the colors of the Gryffindor house upon which Harry resides.  Now if you ask me what the color red had to do with the book The Plot Against America, I will tell you it has nothing to do with the book.  But in truth a color is just the absence of everything else in our light spectrum.  That is unless you are speaking to Christopher Boone.  Christopher Boone is the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.  Christopher has Asperger's Syndrome and because he does not completely understand the workings of everyday life, he prefers to live with his days from a far more logical point of view.  Why is red important then?  Red is important because red is good and to Christopher red means good things.  An example of how Christopher's logic works is that if he sees 3 red cars in a row on the way to school it will be a "quite good day," 4 red cars is a "good day." and 5 red cars is a "super good day."  How does this make sense in a logical perspective?  Well how does Christopher believing if you see 4 yellow cars in a row tell you that it will be a "black day?'  To us it doesn't, but to him it does.
Why should we base whether today will be a good day or a bad day on things completely irrelevant to our daily lives?  Maybe it is true that we shouldn't do that, but we do it already.  The weather is the most common irrelevant thing that we base how our days are going to be.  How many times have you walked outside and it was raining and you said it is going to be a bad day because of it?  Well I know I have, but I don't work outside, so how does it affect me besides the time it takes me to get from point A to point B?  How many times have you gotten up and just felt it was going to be a bad day?  How is this a logical way to judge if our day is going to be bad because we are groggy when we wake up?  How many times have you said you were going to have a bad day because there was something you have to do that you aren't looking forward to?  Well I know it is very common to not look forward to something, but very rarely is it a reason to ruin your whole day for one thing.  The truth is that Christopher's way of thinking is much more logical that ours.
If something so irrelevant is going to decide how every day of our life is going to be, why not make it something you can manipulate?  Every year, for every type of car, there are more red cars purchased than yellow cars (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855652.html).  So with this peace of information perhaps it is more logical to use something that you can manipulate to give you more good days than bad days.  Why should we be forced to judge our days by the hands of nature when we can set a precedent by the traits of other humans?