I patched

Now here's the question of the week: Why do pirates wear eye patches? Do you think it's because all of them have had at least one eye knocked out in a marauding sword fight? Or that they all have an injured eye that needs protection?

To get to the bottom of our question, let's imagine we are on a pirate vessel. Many of the worthy seafarers are below deck, hard at work with zither and whiskey. Then comes the ominous call: "All hands on deck!" When the mateys go scrambling up to right whatever wrong was the object of that call, they need to be ready to act immediately, without hesitation. It takes less than one minute for human eyes in the dark to adapt to a new environment of light. Vision changes quickly from a washed out, low-contrast image with a lack of clarity to a normal, high contrast image.

But eyes adapting to the dark is a different story. This is a slow process, with a gradual emergence of objects appearing out of the fog of darkness. This adjustment can take thirty minutes. Hence the pirate eye patch.

Patched pirates are immediately ready for re-entry into the dark of the below deck. That is, I believe, what makes them pirates.

— Rx is the Florida Weekly muse who hopes to inspire profound mutiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx may be wearing a pirate cloak of invisibility, but emanating from within this shadow is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who knows: You may even inspire the muse. Make contact if you dare.

Pirates are those privileged beings who are constantly prepared against the natural human weakness for the dark unknown. Pirates enter the depths of unknowing with facility. Their everpresent eye patch puts them into a state of constant readiness for the ultimately extreme human challenge. This is the challenge of the depths of unknowing darkness. The eye patch fills a hole, a weak spot, in the frail human capacity.

Incredibly, like a patch in the digital information world, the pirate patched is connected, hooked up, to actualize visual acuity needed in the MMORP (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that is the confrontation of life. In fact, there are life strategy consultants who recommend that people can benefit from "pirate therapy." The claim is that patching one eye while engaging in ordinary life tasks can change perspective.

This can result in a fresh understanding of situations usually taken for granted mindlessly.

As a pirate, I suggest going further, going beyond, descending the extra mile. Instead of one eye patch, why not an I patch? Why not cover both eyes and go below deck completely? Would the infamous third eye emerge?

Think about it: With two eyes we have binocular vision. This means that the separate images of each eye are fused into one image. Having two eyes working together like this has several advantages: We have a spare eye; a wider field of vision; binocular summation (better to see you with, dear frontal objects); and, depth perception.

That's the science of two eyes. But the pirate in me finds fascinating the story that the third eye might emerge below deck, beyond a being whiskeyed and zithered. Shall we imagine?

Below deck, in the unknowing, the right covered eye sings its pirate chantey: "I wanna I; Eye wanna I; I wanna Eye." The right eye sings happy separate singleness. And the left eye sings as well: "Eye wanna Eye; I wanna Aye; Aye wanna I." For the left eye, the song vision is an affirmative seeing of itself as being in all things seen.

And when we pirate patch the individualistic right eye and the collectivistic left, their special songs become counterpoint so complex and seductive that the third eye opens. In that opening a vision of completeness emerges. All perspectives dance the chantey. There is room for all, inclusive embrace of ever emerging possibilities. There is harmony; there is dissonance. There is room for every style, each emerging in full glory next to the full glory of every other. Aye, matey: Now there's a jig worth the dancing.