they don’t blink
Blinking.
It gets a bad rap. It’s a sign of vulnerability.
The first one to blink loses.
Blink and you die.
Just ask Sally Sparrow.
There’s a scientific reason for blinking.
According to Wikipedia, blinking is
known less commonly as nictating, is the rapid closing and opening of the eyelid. It is an essential function of the eye that helps spread tears across and remove irritants from the surface of the cornea and conjunctiva. Blink speed can be affected by elements such as fatigue, eye injury, medication, and disease. A person blinks approximately once every two to ten seconds. The blinking rate is determined by the “blinking center”, but it can also be affected by external stimulus.
But what happens if you don’t blink? Not physiologically. But psychologically. To other people.
Andrew Sullivan points us to a photography project by Robbie Cooper called “Immersion.”
They don’t blink.
It’s spooky. Unnatural.
It’s as if they’re inhuman. Human in form but not in action.
I’m left cold, as if they’re incapable of empathy.
All because they don’t blink.
Which has me thinking that vulnerability is a requirement for empathy.
And empathy a requirement for being human.