#catoptric

Beach birds winging their way over the lustrous liquid silver of the Gosthani River.

The glare here is so intense and must be borne by these birds for such sustained stretches, essentially the entire day, that one marvels these birds do not develop an avian version of snow blindness!!.

We need sunlight to see but sunlight is also detrimental to sight!!!. The ultraviolet rays present in it can cause an opacity of the eye lens - cataract - a serious matter considering that this causes blindness in about 25 million people worldwide. And if there is one species that truly needs ultra-sharp vision for its livelihood it is the high-flying bird!!! Birds don’t peer!!!.

The UV glare from the mobile mirror-like surface of these water apparently cause photo-oxidation of the crystalline proteins in the eye lens, not to mention the generation of superoxide and other reactive oxygen species that do further damage.That the eye lens contains one of the highest concentrations of the antioxidant Ascorbic Acid does not now surprise us!!!

The eye lens is especially vulnerable not only because its proteins are held at super-saturation, making them very vulnerable to precipitation by any chemical or mechanical injury, but in addition do not undergo any molecular or cellular turnover. The lens proteins you are born with are all that you will have for life, and upon reflection it is little short of a molecular miracle that they stay clear and crystalline as long as they do - seven decades.

Cataracts due to relentless sun exposure and glare while out at sea in low-lying boats  - that shortens the distance between the shiny surface and the eye - beset the 50,000 fisherman of Srikakulam district  - about 130 kilometers from here - many of whom develop lens opacities in their forties precluding many of them then from making a living, a serious matter in a people who essentially live from hand-to-mouth..

How these birds - doubtless long-lived, and fishermen in their own right!! - manage to keep their eyes and vision intact over a lifetime - assuming they do, they well might not - is a puzzle that needs explication.

The puzzle is further accentuated by the fact that reflected light is mostly polarized light, and as the pharmaceutical industry has known for a long time, polarized light is far more potent in producing molecular damage than un-polarized light.

Such is the astonishing reflectivity of water, a parameter that increases exponentially once the angle of incidence of light exceeds the Brewster’s Angle of 53 degrees, that it has no trouble literally converting itself into a silver mirror that provides now such a bright, brilliant and burnished background as to guarantee the supernal, superlative silhouette, as witness these beautifully silhouetted beach birds standing stock-still on the riverbank of the Gosthani. The effect is enhanced by the fact that the electric vector of any electromagnetic wave - light being one - can be resolved into both a horizontal component and a vertical component, and that for substantial stretches of degrees both above and below the Brewster’s Angle the horizontal component is fully absorbed by the water; which means that predominantly pure polarized light, now exclusively polarized in the vertical direction, enters the camera. As any professional photographer knows the astonishing glare and catoptric reflectivity of polarized light can vastly increase the sharpness and darkness of a silhouette, water itself performing the function of a polarizer here. We find that the lustrous, light-lit littoral is a magisterial metaphysical mirror that outlines both forms and philosophies.  

The Philosophy of Tropical Littorals and Seashores.

Steve Charles (my Mental Health helper rubber dog ball) stare is somewhat comforting.

My throat hurts, and the voice in my head too.

My 19yr old cousin's wedding is Saturday. With the 26+yr something older man. You say it's love? I'll be there. The rest of my family? I'm pretty sure I'll have a headache by Sunday too.