Memory Project: The Colour Red

Next to the cement step at the kitchen door was a foot scraper. This was a series of metal strips spaced about an inch apart on which to scrape off the mud from the soles of our shoes. When that side of the house was in shade, I sometimes liked to sit on this back step beside the foot scraper, daydreaming and enjoying the coolness.

On one such occasion, I was sitting there idly examining a red bottle top when it occurred to me that, for all I knew, someone else might perceive this colour as blue but call it red, and think red is actually blue. It struck me that there was no way of experiencing perceptions, sensations and emotions other than one’s own. Once the idea had begun to sink in I was shocked by what it implied. It meant that every individual is fundamentally alone, from the womb to the grave.

This thought has stayed with me since childhood, and I have re-examined it over the years. I still believe it is impossible to know with certainty what somebody else feels, and this creates an unbridgeable gap, no matter how intimately one relates to another individual.