The Eyes

My stepfather was a great man.  He'd survived a horrible childhood, came home in one piece from Vietnam, and was one of the most loving people I've met in my lifetime.  We lost him a little over a year ago.  At only 67, he'd been blind for about four years before his passing. Thinking about him has always made me wonder how he enjoyed any part of the latter part of his life without his eyesight. I mean, close your eyes and imagine doing anything that you enjoy doing today, but with the inability to see a thing. Heck, imagine doing anything you need to do, on a daily basis, in total darkness. The eyes are amazing, but can be taken for granted so easily. 

Our eyes can tell a lot about us. We can tell if someone's lying by how the eyes shift, We can see disappointment or happiness in a person's eyes, and some have said you can tell if a person really loves you by the look in his/her eyes. But, what are some things we haven't heard about the eyes?

List 25, well, lists 25 things about the eyes that many of us aren't aware of. For instance, did you know that “the very first person to ever have blue eyes lived around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago” and that “back then, everyone had brown eyes”? I'd never been told this. How about the fact that “people say in the blink of an eye because it’s the fastest muscle in the body”? List 25 goes on with another 23 things we may be oblivious to, pertaining to the eyes.

Woman eye

Fact Slides lists even more interesting details about eyes (and even some about the eyes of animals). Like, “Some women can have a genetic mutation which causes them to see millions of more colors” than the average person. You may be wondering (as I was) why are men excluded from this mutation? According to Pop Sci “this has to do with the X Chromosome.” Fact Slides also throws in the fact that “people with blue eyes have a higher alcohol tolerance.” Do you refuse to believe this? I did too, but Eye Doctor Guide explains that “various studies…indicate that people with light eyes may be able to handle more alcohol/pain than people with darker eyes.” There are so many things to learn about the eyes!

Okay, so what determines the color of the eyes? When I was in school, I remember trying to understand recessive and dominant genes and the roles they play in how eye color forms. I could never quite understand how some recessive genes could overpower dominant ones or how it all came together. In my search, I found an article that explains this a little more clearly. All About Vision  says that “eye colors don't come out as a blend of the parents' colors, as in mixing paint. Each parent has two pairs of genes on each chromosome. So multiple possibilities exist, depending on how the "Wheel of Fortune spins.”

It's fascinating  to try to figure out how we ended up with our eye colors. Our eyes are unique, given to us by our parents and help make us look like who we are. I can't imagine a world without pictures, without color, without being able to look in a mirror to see what everyone else is seeing when they look at me. Our eyes develop and function through microscopic intricacies that we know little to nothing about, but we should never take our eyes for granted.