Humans are visual creatures, nearly a third of our neocortex is devoted to processing the information that we take in with our eyes. More than any other sense we rely on our vision to navigate the world, recognize our friends, and evaluate our environment. It is for this reason that I’ve always been fascinated by people who cannot rely on vision. According to the American Foundation for the Blind, an estimated 25 million adults are living with some form of blindness in the United States. I will freely admit that I don’t know much about being blind which is why I was excited and nervous when Chelsea challenged me to be blind for a day.
I wore that heavy duty blindfold for exactly 24 hours, midnight to midnight. The first night was simple, I put the blindfold on and went to sleep. It was the next morning, waking up blind that was a little unsettling. I wasn’t fully blind as I could make out gross changes in the amount of ambient light in a given area, but practically couldn’t see anything. I found that moving around a very familiar space is not very difficult. It was a simple thing to go to the bathroom, find my toothbrush, and brush my teeth. You intuitively know the space in which you live and can move through it without vision. It was going outside that posed greater difficulty.
As a blind person, I was pretty helpless. It would take a lot of practice, preparation, and courage to step out into the city alone without vision. Fortunately, I had Chelsea to act as my guide and I would have been pretty lost without her. Have you ever noticed the loud beeping noise at crosswalks that is ostensibly to help the blind cross the intersection? I still don’t know how they work. They beep loudly for a few seconds and then you’re on your own- hope you’re headed in the right direction. I have a lot more respect for the blind people I’ve seen crossing the street.
A trip to the grocery store further revealed how much we take sight for granted. Pre-packaged foods were difficult or impossible for me to differentiate, the store itself was difficult to navigate, and paying with cash or credit is a significant challenge. I imagine you would either need someone to buy groceries for you, or preferably, call ahead and have them collect your groceries for you. I did notice the smells of the grocery store were much richer and my primary means of knowing generally where I was. I anticipated relying on my hearing more but it was interesting to find that smell was the sense I engaged more notably.
I enjoyed a picnic and afternoon of listening to radio programs. (RadioLab was my best friend) In the evening I met a bunch of friends at a bar, and discovered finding your way around totally unfamiliar noisy places while blind is particularly difficult. When the blindfold finally came off I was shocked to discover that after just 24 hours I was totally overwhelmed by even the low-light of the bar. It wasn’t so much the brightness as it was the rush of information that my mind wasn’t prepared for. I can only imagine the slow process of rehabilitation for someone who was learning to see after a long period of blindness.
All in all this was an extremely educational experience. Being blind in a seeing world can be very frustrating, it takes resilience and relentlessness to be self-sufficient. The greatest asset is a caring friend who can support you if you need it, but will let you do things your own way at your own pace. I thought about all the interesting ways you could arrange and decorate an apartment for a blind person- you wouldn’t need much light and different textured wall paper in each room could help with navigation. I also had an idea for an “audio play” from the perspective of a blind person that I might put together one of these days.
If you’d like to learn more about how to help cure one cause of blindness, please check out www.curechm.org
Until next time!
-Robinson
