This experiment could help shift your perspective.
On the Opinion Video team, we think a lot about millennials and Gen Zers who express their world views primarily through video rather than text. We scour the internet for members of this rising generation of D.I.Y. video makers. And every so often we find a largely unknown artist whose visual commentary leaves us in awe. |
That happened this year when I discovered the work of James Robinson, a 25-year-old self-taught video creator who started when he was 11. |
James sent me two films. He had edited one of them, a 23-minute unpublished film called "Whale Eyes," while he was studying environmental sciences as an undergrad. The video was both excruciatingly awkward and illuminating. |
James has a visual disability that makes it difficult to coordinate and focus his eyes, which skew in different directions. That means he sees the world in ever-moving motions. It's hard and sometimes dangerous for him to do everyday things like slice cheese. |
This disability also shapes his social encounters: James has spent his life wrestling with the awkwardness of people not knowing where to look when they talk to him. |
 | | James Robinson |
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While growing up, James had repeated conversations with his parents about every imaginable remedy, including corrective surgery. But they essentially never discussed the social and emotional impact of his disability. In the film, James confronts his family, on camera, for the first time about one of the most important conversations that never occurred at their dinner table. |
"I don't have a problem with the way that I see," he says. "My only problem is with the way that I'm seen." |
To me, the film shows the enormous power of silence and the lengths we go to in order to avoid the uncomfortable. It makes me regret the meaningful conversations that never took place at my dinner table during my childhood. |
One of James's brothers had never bothered to find out what it was like for James to live with his eyes. And his father nervously insists that James has beautiful eyes before asking, "What color are they?" |
In the film, James uses several video effects to explain how his eyes function, and how he has invented coping mechanisms for navigating a world built for what he calls "normal eyes." |
I worked with James over several months to edit his film into a 12-minute video that we are premiering online today. James has an important story to tell, and video is the perfect medium for it. His film offers a lesson in broaching the uncomfortable, and in navigating differences. I hope you can watch it with those closest to you. |
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