Re: Disability versus ability
Blindness is legally and socially speaking a disability, whatever you make of it. If we want to analyse disability in a different way, then disability is classified as something else, regardless of whether one is blind or not. That I can use my iPhone with voiceover is my ability; that a sighted person cannot use an iPhone with voiceover is his disability. That I can get some information that many sighted individuals cannot get through hearing is my ability and respectively their disability. However, disability in terms of what one has or owns as opposed to what one can do or cannot do, is a totally diffrent concept. Disability in the case of having a physical/mental/sensory limitation should by no means be disregarded or avoided because that way we are partly and sometimes largely denying what we have and what we should live with everyday. Of course there are workarounds and this is definitely the best time to be blind because many issues we have have been considered, reproduced and solved; however that doesn't mean we are not blind or that the disability is totally overcome. It's true that sometimes we can do what our sighted counterparts cannot do; it is true that we are skilled, that we have impeccable memory and stuf of this nature, but this comes always as a result of the struggle of our brain for communication and information. The lack of sight as well plays a significant role because our brain is not fludded with information that we would otherwise get if we were not blind: the colour of one's hair, the colour of one's jacket, the brand of one's glasses, one's look and movement and the whole body language is separate information that the brain has to process and this of course involves energy and effort. Our brain, however, is focused somewhere else and that enables us to perfection some skills that we acquire due to blindness. Have you ever thought about how different your lives would be if you weren't blind? How many of us would have this lifestyle that we have today.
To conclude what I have said, and to lay out my viewpoint, blindness in our case is a disability and anything else is wordplay or philosophical discussion that won't lead us anywhere. Thankfully, just as in other facets of life, many of the chritical issues we have are solved and this is probably the time where people with visual impairments can make the best out of their lives and achieve what three/four decades ago was unthinkable. My idea is, teach your sighted friends, colleagues and anyone close to you that you can do most of the things they can but in an alternative way which leads to the same result, and they will be really happy to accept who and how you are.
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