Short Thoughts

Color-Changing Eyes

It wasn’t long ago that if you asked someone the color of their eyes you’d get a straight answer. Blue, green, hazel, brown, orange, or whatever else is considered kosher for the Martin-Schultz Scale. Increasingly, however, the answer I get nowadays from a surprising number of people is “well actually, they change color.”

Wait, they change color? You mean they aren’t always the same? Don’t ask my why that strikes me as so strange, I myself claim the same thing. But you’re trying to tell me that I’m not the only person?

Science tells us that, yes, while eyes do change color over extended periods of time, day-to-day or minute-to-minute changes just don’t happen — it’s all a trick of the lights. I’m dubious, myself, as I’ve witnessed what seem to be considerable eye color changes influenced by more than just lighting. When it comes down to it, though, it’s kind of irrelevant, because it’s not the color changes themselves that are important: the fact that so many people say that they’ve seen eyes change color means not that the world is undergoing a color-changing eye epidemic, but rather that so many more people are paying attention to it.

That means that people care.

It is evidence of a minutia of attention to detail in this fast-paced world that’s growing faster by the second. It is evidence of a human race that cares about the little things. And it is good. Strange how such a simple thought can make all the difference in one’s hope for the world.