Emblem

The eye. Vision. Visual. Seeing. Eyesight. Insight. Inside. The eye is the portal to the soul. It is the only part of the body that has life apart from the body. The eye commands the emotions. The eye is both vulnerable and strong. The eye is red with anger and wells up with sadness. The dilation of the iris signals various chemical functions within the body. The eye is both the recipient of visual knowledge (i.e. images, text) and the facilitator of memory; it remembers. It juxtaposes. It reflects.

My eyes are dark brown. Some have told me they almost appear black. I've been told that my eyes are mysterious. Mystery. Mister. Mystic. Mist. Rust. I don't trust others easily. My eyes have seen while my heart has felt and my ears have heard. Eyes mean independence. The cyclops fascinated me as a child. Symmetry of a different kind. Solo.

The eye is often mysterious, inquisitive. I am an explorer and rely on insight to rationalize existence (I am a chronic thinker).

Someone once asked me which sense I would choose to have taken away if I had to go without one. I answered, I don't know. Just don't take away my sight. Rolling hills, lofty skyscrapers, rippling ocean waters, the planets, the sunset, beautiful faces and hands and eyes: they would merely be figments of my imagination had it not been for sight. The gift of sight is what I am most grateful for.

I wonder what the eye symbolizes to others. "The success of the emblem...depends upon the use of codes shared by the audience. E.D. Hirsch called these shared codes "cultural literacy" - a superficial knowledge of an encyclopedia of information..." (Ulmer, Internet Invention, p249). Peter M. Daly describes the importance of understanding the emblem in terms of associating various virtues and values to historical heroes: "'Such figures stand paradigmatically for abstract notions: Ulysses for prudence, Brutus for virtue vanquished, and David for the healing power of music" (Ulmer, Internet Invention, p249).