Blindness or deafness

Subject: Blindness or deafness
From: GUEST,Mickey191
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 09:28 PM

Oh, Dear Hearts, I thought this subject may be old,but being new to the web etc; I 've reverted to a great old question. YOU MUST give up one or the other- your sight or your hearing. Which do you choose? WHY?.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 09:38 PM

Allow me to be the first and probably only one in the joint to say I'd give up hearing first. Most of my life would go on easier without hearing than sight. I know you can relearn things, but the choice for me would be easy.....Never hear my Karen or my kids voices again or never see them again. I don't have to think twice.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 09:48 PM

Catspaw you are not alone, I would choose the same.
I could live in a world of silence but I would feel great loss if I could not see the beauty that surrounds me and look into the eyes of those I love.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Bugsy
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 09:55 PM

Having been temporarily deaf at one stage of my life, and being so short sighted that, without glasses, I can only make out blurry shapes, I would rather lose my sight than my hearing.

Try these crude but effective experiments. After dark, get the family to plug their ears and try communicate beyond the "Do you want to eat" or "Do you want a drink" sign language. Then unplug you ears, turn the lights off and try the same in the dark.

Or turn the TV sound down and try to follow the storyline by watching the picture only, then turn off the picture and turn up the sound and try the same again.

I realise that this is oversimplifying the problem but it will prove the point that it is easier to "Communicate" without sight than without sound. There are of course the dificulties of everyday life to overcome but I think the blind are catered for in everyday life (ATM's, crosswalks, etc) than the deaf are.

A silent world is a very lonely world.

Cheers

Bugsy.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 11:42 PM

I disagree with my buddy Bugsy, but he is right......Its a lonelier world without either.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: DonMeixner
Date: 01 Aug 00 - 11:54 PM

Some body once asked me what I'd do if I could never play again. I told him I'd learn a new way. I have done just that. Questions like this are fun for theoretic conjecture but too scarry for me to contemplate. I am closer to the deafness edge than I care to be as I hear only in my left ear. I won't consider the loss of either.

Don

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 12:33 AM

I'm right there with DonM. It's a good thing it's my left I can hear out of, because it is closest to the fiddle. I do a LOT of fingerwatching, with my foot on the bass board too. For some reason, the Band doesn't like me to lose the beat.........

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: alison
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 12:57 AM

I have a condition which has already cost me my lower hearing range.... and if I'm not careful could leave me deaf... often I can't hear the bass notes on a guitar... and it sounds odd.. like they're playing the wrong chord (which can be offputting in a band.. I just have to trust the other players). But I'm learning to live with it... but I really don't want not to hear my kids.

I can live without sight, (I think this would be more difficult if you were born blind), but I've seen lots, and can have it described to me.

But as a musician I think losing my hearing completely would be a lot worse. Althought given the choice I'd like to keep both

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: zonahobo
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 02:13 AM

I'd keep my hearing. Think of watching a movie without sound and listening to a radio show. Which is more enjoyable. I've read that hearing gives us all dimensions, but sight only gives us the one before our eyes. I'm thankful I have either and doubly so to have both.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 08:19 AM

Vision. I talk WAY too much to give up the ease of vocal conversation. And I already know ASL...

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Kim C
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 11:58 AM

Sight. Definitely sight. There are a great many things I would miss, like the red poppies in the summer, or the delight on someone's face when you've given them a surprise gift..... I would be devastated to lose my hearing, because I have always been more hearing-oriented than sight-oriented. But if it were a choice between death or deafness, I'd find a way to cope with being deaf. :)

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 05:13 PM

While I'd grievously regret losing my hearing, losing sight would not be a possible choice for me. I'm a lifelong dedicated reader, an omnivorous reader, a compulsive reader. No question.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 05:19 PM

Sight, because I can tell more about you by hearing you breathe and touching you than by looking at you, and because I have to keep learning more songs or I think I would die pretty quick. And I could give up sunrises and sunsets, and all that, having had many slowly savored ones, but I could not give up laughter shared.

So yes, sight. But only after Max makes this place talk out loud. Now that....

~S~

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 05:25 PM

I wouldn't choose. And the hell with anyone who tries to make me!

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Mbo
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 05:35 PM

Wow, Mrrz! My sister knows ASL and is minoring in Sign Language Studies. She wanted to minor in Sign Language Interpretation, but they don't have an interpretation teacher to teach the last 2 classes she would need to minor in that. As a result, my other sister signs, and I have picked up some of it too.

--Matt

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Marion
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 10:42 AM

I have heard that Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, said that "Blindness cuts you off from things, and deafness cuts you off from people."

And let me take this opportunity to say how totally in awe of Beethoven I am for continuing to compose after losing his hearing. Has anyone read the "Heigelenstadt Testament" (almost certainly spelled wrong)? It's a will that he wrote when it became clear that his hearing loss was deteriorating and was irreversible, and it's a very moving piece of writing. I found it on the internet; sometime soon I'll find it again and post the link here.

Marion

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Marion
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 01:20 PM

Here, God willing, is that link:

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Marion
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 01:21 PM

Here, God willing, is that link:

Beethoven's H-something Testament

I know it's hard reading without normal sentence structure or paragraphing, but I think it will reward a few minutes of reading.

Marion

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 01:21 PM

Given a choice, which do you think Doc Watson would choose?

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: kendall
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 02:49 PM

deafness would free me from this world of noise. But, blindness would destroy my independence. By the way Don M. your hearing cant be too bad, you like my singing!!

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 03:18 PM

Short of some horrific Spanish Inquisition-type scenario, I don't expect to be offered the choice. If offered, I would probably respond by cupping a hand to my ear and saying "huh?" Perhaps they would figure the damage was already done, and leave me alone.

Marion, I have read the Heilegenstadt Testament (marginally better spelling?), and agree that it is a very moving statement -- a window into a great man's tortured soul.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: alison
Date: 04 Aug 00 - 09:49 AM

thanks Marion

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 May 09 - 04:26 AM

When I was a child the idea of being terminally in the dark frightened me. Now? Well I cannot contemplate never hearing or participating in music. Perhaps it is beacue I have a head full of visual images to call up and enjoy if I wish.

And though the same holds true for sounds, silence is more terrifying than darkness to me. So many songs to learn, performers to hear, so little time

Though having siad that, I just saw increible peice on BBC1 Breakfast show about Paul Whittaker, profoundly deaf from birth and yet conducting choirs and getting deaf people involved in experiencing music as a sensation instead of sound.

Pretty amazing.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Bugsy
Date: 05 May 09 - 04:38 AM

Being deaf from birth is a very different kettle of fish to losing your hearing at a later date though, don't you think?


cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: GUEST,Cliff
Date: 05 May 09 - 04:40 AM

I was involved in an industrial accident which left me totally blind for 3 days & partially for 3-4 weeks.
Worst period of my life.
I would give up hearing first.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Peace
Date: 06 May 09 - 02:26 AM

I'd rather be blind. I had a cyst removed from my eye (left) when I was about 10. I was bandaged for over a week. It was difficult not to see and wonder whether I would again. Later in life I was near an explosion which made one hell of a loud noise. For about five minutes I couldn't hear anything. NOTHING. I was in a panic. All I could think of was songs I'd never hear again, never write again, never sing again.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 May 09 - 02:56 AM

When I was a younger man I was often blinded 2 or 3 days at a time by the work I did (removing or putting down roofs where coal tar pitch was used). We'd have drugs to deal with the pain of our pitch burnt eyes & would have to wear patches over our eyes for 1,2 or 3 days. I can remember using those days off to go out at nite partying or clubing. If it had been my ears they'd have put me right back to work with no time off.

Barry

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 May 09 - 03:02 AM

It's almost like being deaf anyway not hearing Kendall sing anymore. I wish'd he'd lost his ears or I'd had lost my vison instead of him losing his voice. He was never that good to look at anyway so that wouldn't have been a problem but he sure was a pleasure to listen to, well he still is,,,,,,,sometimes,,,,depending on who he's cussing or what kind of story he's telling.


Barry


LOL, Kendall

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: Gurney
Date: 06 May 09 - 03:35 AM

Depends if I was married or not.
I used to visit a lonely guy who was blind. His house stank. If he spilled something, it stayed spilled until the cleaner came. He always asked me to bring him lots of change, because he couldn't see banknotes.
Blind people can be fully socialised, can be musicians, but they can't drive.
Deaf people have difficulty becoming fully 'with' the hearing, and often are only socialised with other deaf people, but they can get about easily.

Life must be getting a little better for both, with talking computers and subtitles on TV.

I think I'd prefer to hear music, on the whole.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: GRex
Date: 06 May 09 - 04:50 AM

I am very hard of hearing, although amplification helps me to hear music I have a problem distinguishing speech and use subtitles on the TV. Singing voices are mostly like musical instruments to me. Am unable to join the choruses unless I know the song. I keep to the tune when singing by feeling the vibrations in my head.

      In spite of this, the thought of being blind horrifies me.

               GRex

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: maeve
Date: 06 May 09 - 08:46 AM

Barry- LOL- I'm just delighted we still have Kendall himself to tease.

maeve

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 06 May 09 - 09:46 AM

Much as I know how I would miss music and laughter I would choose to give up hearing. The thought of never seeing the dear face of my loved one is heartbreaking. Burl

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 06 May 09 - 09:56 AM

I'd rather pull my own head off than lose either.

Subject: RE: Blindness or deafness
From: GUEST,Golightly
Date: 06 May 09 - 09:58 AM

A close friend was born deaf and text messaging has transformed his life. It's tedious and imperfect, but being able to contact him whenever, wherever, by phone is wonderful compared to his old situation.

So I'd hate to go blind.