Some say BLACK is the absence of light, of color. WHITE, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is the totality of light and color; all that can be seen or imagined condensed in one intense ray; the Earth and all her creatures in singular brightness, our Universe summarized as a single Star.

Some say also that 2 and 2 make 5, that at the edge of every Ocean awaits the gaping void, that men and women-folk are equal in capabilities physikal and mental, that the Moon is made of cheese-stuff, et cetera, et cetera. I do not mean to lampoon the proclaimers of such known un-truths, for any truth needs a challenging falsehood to come into full fruition, only to highlight that the naive claims put forth in the previous paragraph – of BLACK and of WHITE – as such falsehoods.

There is only one color: GRAY. Really! – Only one. Light is light, dancing and changing, at times specular and at times diffuse, but only of this color, which we call GRAY. It could take any name, obviously, an arbitrary identifier ordained by us speakers of human language, but GRAY is suitable as the well-known in-between of BLACK and WHITE. GRAY is in fact BLACK, and WHITE, and all else that there is to see. In the movement of GRAY, we conjure other “colors” as explanations, naming wavelengths and phenomena, but they do not exist. Not more than the 2 and 2 that make 5, or the waterfalls at the extremes of the Atlantic.

What then of the PINK creature?

That is not a question of optics, but of theology, even heresy. Such a kreatur (or should we say kreation?) has indeed been attested by many a scholar of color and change (Goethe, et al). Too much, I find, has been said on the subject. I will not add to this flaming pyre of lies.