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Picture a leek.
Some people see the veined white, very slightly yellowing body with a few roots left at the cut base, rising into deep green leaves, perhaps beginning to dry out at their tips, and perhaps with a few grains of sand sticking here and there to the plant. The kind of leek you might bring home from the grocery.
Some see an emoji leek, something like a pure white stalk ending an a deep green bloom of leaves, with, dark outlines in virtual ink.
Others have only a dim image of the idea of a leek, though maybe they can smell its odor, like an onion but more gentle, or taste its flavor in a salad of steamed leeks lightly dressed with an olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Or perhaps they can neither see nor smell it, but can feel its fibers yield under the knife on the cutting board as the cut goes through, layer by layer. Or feel a slice of softened, boiled leek in their mouths as it suddenly gives way to the scraping crack of a grain of sand between the molars.
Some cannot represent it at all. They have little experience with leeks, and would hardly recognize one among other vegetables, let alone see it in their mind's eye.
Only a few would disagree that they have a mind's eye, and so find it impossible to picture a leek. But what of those who always had the ability to picture things in their mind's eye, and now find it has gone blind?
Some people see the veined white, very slightly yellowing body with a few roots left at the cut base, rising into deep green leaves, perhaps beginning to dry out at their tips, and perhaps with a few grains of sand sticking here and there to the plant. The kind of leek you might bring home from the grocery.
Some see an emoji leek, something like a pure white stalk ending an a deep green bloom of leaves, with, dark outlines in virtual ink.
Others have only a dim image of the idea of a leek, though maybe they can smell its odor, like an onion but more gentle, or taste its flavor in a salad of steamed leeks lightly dressed with an olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Or perhaps they can neither see nor smell it, but can feel its fibers yield under the knife on the cutting board as the cut goes through, layer by layer. Or feel a slice of softened, boiled leek in their mouths as it suddenly gives way to the scraping crack of a grain of sand between the molars.
Some cannot represent it at all. They have little experience with leeks, and would hardly recognize one among other vegetables, let alone see it in their mind's eye.
Only a few would disagree that they have a mind's eye, and so find it impossible to picture a leek. But what of those who always had the ability to picture things in their mind's eye, and now find it has gone blind?
