It's all relative.

  

Orange things: Not to be trusted. 

Being a photographer I previously imagined my understanding of colour to be something similar to the relationship a dog shares with a rare porterhouse steak. I devour colour, and the more saturated, contrasty and generally the more juicer colours are to me, the better. But, as I was soon to find out, colour was not all that it seemed to be. On my everlasting quest to broaden my knowledge on seemingly obvious things, I stumbled upon a tutorial on "Creative Colour" hosted by a photographer who was also a professor and whose experience and qualifications were lengthier than a giraffe's spinal column. It was he who taught me that initial shades of colour are perceived differently when combined or superimposed on other certain colours. In other words, orange is not always orange. Which disappointed me in a way because orange used to be my favourite colour as a child, and now I felt betrayed. Not only that, but now I was beginning to doubt the very fundamentals of the popular seeing is believing theory. Sight was fast becoming a dubious sense for me.

It's all relative you see. And I'm not speaking of the Uncle Billy-Bob from the farm sort of relative in this instance. You know, the one who drinks too much home brewed beer and constantly speaks with a slur. Or cousin Rick, the uber-wealthy stock broker who sent you a cheap neck tie when you graduated. No, this is far more annoying and way more dangerous. It possesses the power to take what you have always believed and transform it into just the opposite. Naturally, I tried to figure out how I could use it to my advantage in the future. So the next time I'm slacking off taking a creative siesta at work and my boss calls me lazy, I'll merely yawn and state that I'm not nearly as lazy compared to say, a three-toed sloth or heavens forbid even worse, someone who works in Parliament. I'm absolutely sure this will straighten things out. Yes, it's all relative. Kids, the next time your mom says your room looks like a dump, I suggest you take her hand and march her straight down to an actual dump-site. In relation to this, your room will miraculously appear to be more sanitary than a clinical ward. I would then demand an apology and perhaps, a piece of chocolate cake.

Have you ever thought you were any good at computers? Well, in relation to that new executive in your I.T department, you comparatively know less than nothing. Think you're the bee's knees at ball room dancing? Wrong again! Chances are that your next door neighbour can out-Tango you in their sleep. The world is a big and competitive place and there is seemingly always someone who is better and brighter in pretty much every aspect of anything than the next. But remember, this also works conversely. A massive percentage of the world's population is prone to disease, famine, poverty and that other thing that keeps rearing its ugly head, debt. So if you aren't vicitms of one of these then consider yourself privileged. If you're an average guy like me then remember that Mr. Jones may outrank you money-wise, but there is always someone worse off than you too.

Then it happened. Just as I was reveling in my new relative theory, I found the one single component that may compromise its entire existence - the Guinness Book of World Records. This manuscript identifies humans who are basically the top of the evolutionary food chain in their respective fields. I was told exactly who was the tallest, fattest and wealthiest people on Earth. I was shown who could jump higher, further or eat more hotdogs in thirty seconds than anyone else in existence. No one was better at it than them. They were the do all and end all, the Alpha and Omega of a seemingly infinite list of relative comparisons. All these scientific terms suddenly reminded of another pioneer of his time who discovered something relatively important...

And it's quite appropriately named too. It was called, the Theory of Relativity and I believe that Einstein himself was quite involved with this. Now, I have over the years read many different versions of this to try and grasp a better understanding of it. The official version, which involved many numbers and symbols and which, like a physics lesson from hell, had me running for the hills. And then there was the layman's version that tried to explain it in everyday terms, which was slightly more successful. From this, I managed to deduce that the Theory of Relativity has something to do with mass and/or space and time. And possibly the colour which one's underwear changes when travelling at light speed. Which I am assuming isn't orange and if it were then it could definitely not be trusted. Now please excuse me while I take this copy of the book of records next door, to show the Joneses that they aren't the richest people on the planet.