Hello there hipsters.

Upon careful thought and consideration and the weighing of several pros and cons, I have reached a final conclusion: eyesight is most certainly my favourite sense.

Imagine being born without sight and not being able to experience all those things that humans in general take for granted. Imagine yourself not knowing what the colour red is and having nothing in your mind to compare that rich shade to. Imagine trying to figure out what the sky looks like with its wisps of white cloud lightly brushed over its light blue surface and having no way of distinguishing between the white and blue themselves. Thought provoking, isn’t it, wondering what it must be like to never have seen?

I’m not saying, though, that it doesn’t matter if you can’t hear, smell, taste or feel the bits and pieces that make up the world around you, not at all. These senses are perhaps just as important as being able to see. However it has been said that a picture speaks more than a thousand words and so one can imagine how many words are spoken to us through our colourful, information-packed environment. Now how would we read these words and interpret their meanings without being able to see them? Yes, this shows we are able to learn so much just by looking and seeing alone. The ability to see has the power to spark curiosity and new ideas in our minds.

The eye itself is quite a complex and sophisticated organ in our bodies. It allows us to see by collecting information in the form of light. Our eyes are protected by an outer transparent membrane called the cornea. Light rays reflected off the objects we are looking at enter our eyes through the pupil. The iris surrounds the pupil and is the part of our eyes which is coloured. It opens and closes to control the amount of light that enters our eyes. Light passes through the lens onto the retina which is surrounded by the choroid which provides it with blood and support. The cells in the retina are sensitive to light and produce electric signals when touched by light. These signals pass through the optic nerve to our brain which interprets the signals as images.

As is the case with most things good on our planet earth, the ability to see comes with its negatives. Sometimes we see things that we aren’t supposed to, especially in the media. Our brains are corrupted easily by our eyes, (and yes you might say this is also the case with our ears, but hey, you can only hear so much and actions do speak louder than words) and the things we catch ourselves looking at stick in our minds for an unbelievably long time. We must diligently work, sometimes on a daily basis, to keep ourselves innocent and out of trouble by averting our eyes whenever it is necessary. This is the world we live in today.

But hey, don’t let that get you down. You don’t need to pluck your eyes out or anything that close because they’re putting dark thoughts into your mind. Your eyes can still be used to stimulate positive thoughts too. Read a book, look around to find solutions to problems, paint a picture. The list is endless. With this in mind it’s not difficult to see why sight could be anyone’s favourite sense.