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New York Minute

I am always impressed when I see a blind person on the subway or walking down the street. Sometimes, I’ll close my eyes and pretend what it is like to be blind. But I don’t last long and it is just pretend. Still, I am filled with humility at that moment.

I don’t mean to suggest that blind people are saints. When I was in college there was an angry blind guy who walked around and always had a remark if someone accidentally bumped into him. “Oh, I’m sorry, that must be my fault, I guess I’m blind,” he’d say.

Navigating the streets and subways might become second nature for blind people, because getting around when you’re blind isn’t really a choice, it is a fact of life. This may seem daunting as hell for people who can see, but some blind people have never seen, it’s just the hand they were dealt.

I am still struck with admiration for them all the same.

One comment

1 Bluenatic   ~  Feb 18, 2011 5:34 pm

This bring to mind Shakespeare's lines from King Lear, spoken by the character Gloucester, who determines that his actual vision was deceiving and that only through blindness could he come to truly see clearly. "I have no way and therefore want no eyes," Gloucester says. "I stumbled when I saw."

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