Dear Eyes

Dear Eyes,

How do you see?

I know your retina, the film of 

Photoreceptor cells

(now that’s a five dollar word)

Seems

Counterintuitive to most.

That’s because it is.

Light has to fight its way through three layers of cells

(ganglion and bipolar, to name a few)

Just to let the rods and cones know

That it’s there, and then

The rods and cones tell the other cells that 

Light brushed past on its way as if they

Care at all.

They’re more the type to 

get straight to business, those ganglion and bipolar cells.

But eyes, I wonder

How do you focus?

I mean, I know the ciliary body 

(if I’m not careful, I’ll sound intelligent)

Stretches and pulls at the lens

But how do you know?

What signals do you get from the brain

That tell you to

Pull this muscle here

And

Contract that muscle there

So that you can see?

Then again,

I suppose you aren’t really doing the seeing, 

Are you?

Some might say it’s the brain doing all the work

Of seeing what the eyes

Detect

But what does that mean, really?

Is “seeing” an interpretive act, or is it

More light and dark, black and white, red and green and blue?

Do we “see” the flashes of color that enter your pupils

Or do we “see” the lines and shapes that the occipital lobes declare are there? 

Eyes, I hope you don’t think me rude in 

Saying that the seeing act

Might not be yours at all.

I don’t mean to say that you aren’t the most

Crucial part of the process—

Only that seeing and eyes and looking and focusing are all

So

Confusing.

Do you know how you see?

Do you know that you see?

Maybe the brain doesn’t bother to tell you that part.

Or maybe you’re fully aware of your 

Part of a larger, overly complex system.

Do you think I’m like an eye? 

Doing the looking, but not the seeing?

Like, maybe people are just some automated organ set to do some task

That some higher power will then collect and interpret. 

I think about stuff like that, sometimes.

I think eyes are not like an automated organ. 

I think eyes are like tiny people working all day

To send the right signals out to the ganglion cells

So the brain can see.

The brain is like your supervisor.

And you’re an employee in a job with no possibility of promotion.

Is it sad, being an eye?

I hope it’s not sad.

Maybe it’s boring.

I hope it’s not too boring.

In any case, 

I am fairly certain it will be the brain that is reading this

letter, no matter

Who sees it.

Oh well.

Signed,

The Viewer.