Wait, Isn’t Everybody Non-Binary?
About a year ago, while I was diligently procrastinating on YouTube, I discovered that I have a condition called aphantasia; otherwise known as the inability to form images in my mind.
For example, if you ask me to picture an apple, I’ll nod and pretend that I’m doing as you asked, but I won’t actually be seeing anything. It’s more like my mind “cues up” the apple concept:
Apple: noun, often attributive.
ap·ple | \ ˈa-pəl
1: the fleshy, usually rounded red, yellow, or green edible pome fruit of a usually cultivated tree (genus Malus) of the rose family
2: a fruit (such as a star apple) or other vegetative growth (such as an oak apple) suggestive of an apple.
Something like this.
I’ll think of apple pie and apple juice and Apple Bottom jeans. I’ll create a list of the colours and shapes that apples can plausibly be. I’ll remember that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and wonder if I’m the apple of anybody’s eye, but my mind’s eye remains resolutely blank throughout the process.
Some people can visualise the apple as clearly as if they were holding it in their hand, some only see a vague…
