Notes on Blindness Page #3

when I was aware of a growing feeling

of doubt and uncertainty.

I was intensely aware of the fact

that I was going through nothing.

Through an intensely cold nothing.

Of going nowhere.

Of being entirely alone.

I turned around

and walked back to the house.

Away In A Manger

I felt as if I was banging my head,

my whole body,

against the wall of blindness.

A desperate need to break through

this curtain,

this veil which was surrounding me,

to come out into the world

of light out there.

How could this happen to me?

Who could ask me to go through this?

Who had the right to deprive me of the

sight of my children at Christmas time?

The image that often haunted me

during the early days of my blindness

came back to me with such force.

I was in a little coal truck in a mineshaft,

being trundled deeper and deeper

into the mine.

Were we just out of control?

Was there nobody in a position to stop it?

Would it just go on and on?

I had to get out, I had to jump out,

I had to run back.

But, no,

it remorselessly carried me in deeper

and deeper and deeper.

I think this idea of you

going away into another world

where I couldn't be was...

That was awful, that was...

Shall I scratch my eyes out?

Shall I come with you into this world?

I somehow feel

that if I were to accept this thing

if I were to enter into acquiescence,

then I would die...

because it would be as if my ability

to resist,

my will to resist, were broken.

On the other hand,

not to accept seems futile,

because what one is refusing to accept

is a fact.

And now what I have to face is

the thought that there is no escape.

The thought that I shall now just go on

with another 20,

30 or even more years of this.

One fights back by adopting tiny techniques.

Familiarity, predictability,

the same objects,

the same little movements of the hand.

One has to establish

some kind of environment,

a study, a room, a route, a passage,

over which one can establish

some kind of territory.

I am not particularly conscious

of being blind while I'm at work.

When I'm at work, all my students

have to come into my world

of ideas and concepts and language.

OK, let's start with the very

oldest or most ancient of these.

That's the very first conflict, faith.

The essence of the thing is planning,

initiatives, and active participation.

The moment

I sink into passivity and irrelevance...

then I'm done for.

Tomorrow it'll be reasonably sunny,

reasonably cold, reasonably hot,

reasonably everything.

In fact, I don't know at all!

And that is the end of the news.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

A note on the experience

of hearing rain falling.

This evening, I came out the front door

of the house and it was raining.

I stood for a few minutes,

lost in the beauty of it.

Rain brings out the contours

of what's around you...

in that it introduces a blanket

of differentiated and specialised sound...

which fills the whole

of the audible environment.

If only there could be something

equivalent to rain falling inside.

Then the whole of a room would take on

shape and dimension...

instead of being isolated, cut off,

pre-occupied internally.

You're presented with a world.

You are related to a world.

You are addressed by a world.

Why should this experience

strike one as being beautiful?

Cognition is beautiful.

It is beautiful to know.

Well, I must thank you again

for your tape,

from all of you.

From you, Thomas, and Lizzie,

and Imogen, too.

How are you getting along?

We'd love to see you sometime.

We don't realise how the time passes.

Anyhow, thank you again.

I hope you'll have the time

to come out here to see us.

Hello, Grandpa and Grandma,

I hope you're fine,

cos we're having a wonderful time here.

Do send love to all the other relatives

in Australia.

Now, it's time for the morning concert.

# Sparkle, evening star, I see you there

# High above our land, you sit and stare

# Star bright

# Gleaming white

# I wonder if you hear my song tonight. #

Beautiful.

That was good, Immy, worked quite well.

I've got one of them!

Beautiful.

That was good, Immy, worked quite well.

Well, Mum and Dad,

I hope you enjoy that as an authentic

bit of children's production!

I should perhaps also add

we will not be able to come to Australia...

because I do feel that the lack of

mobility and of activity

would be difficult for me to put up with.

I'm sure you'll understand that.

Mummy!

Well, I must stop now

and get this off to you.

Lots of love to all of you, from all

of us. Bye now.

Read on.

"The grass and the plants

"and it was..."

What does that little sign mean?

Do it again on my hand.

It's going...

with a...

Like this?

Yeah.

It's a comma.

- What does that mean?

- A pause.

- Oh.

- Where does it have it?

One night, putting Thomas to bed,

I had a long

and detailed discussion with him

about my blindness.

"Will you always be blind?" he said.

"Yes, always."

"Couldn't the doctors stop it?"

"The doctors tried."

I explained about the retina,

how it sometimes tears and comes

off from the back of the eye.

"What did they say?"

"Well, they just said, "Sorry, Mr Hull,

we can't do any more for you.""

"Why doesn't God help you?"

"God does help me,

"in lots of ways."

"How?"

"Well, he makes me strong

and gives me courage."

"But he doesn't help you to get

your eyes back?"

Our, Father

Who art in heaven

Hallowed be Thy name

Your kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Yes, there have been times

when I have been angry with God.

Unreasonably so, I suppose.

Sometimes one's emotions spill over.

But I don't regard faith as a sort of a...

a shield against the ordinary ups

and downs of human life.

Why shouldn't it happen to me?

So now at last we've come to this...

great problem, this question.

The problem of mutual understanding.

How can blind and sighted people

truly understand each other?

How can men understand women?

How can the rich understand the poor?

How can the old understand the young?

Can we have insight into other people?

This is the great question upon which

the unity of our humanity hangs.

The last two days have been

particularly peaceful and happy.

Two long days with Marilyn

and it was one of the best times

I've had playing with the children.

Up a tree!

Yes, Thomas, wow!

Don't go falling off, will you?

My health is very much

better than it was at Christmas time.

Perhaps blindness won't cut me off,

after all.

Was I going to live in reality

or live in nostalgia?

Over a period of weeks, months maybe,

the decision hardened in me.

I would not live in nostalgia,

but would live in reality.

And would become blind.

Wow! Look at this.

It's a really long drop.

Yeah.

What's that bit in the middle? Is that...

- Are you all right, darling?

- Yeah.

I wanted my parents to know

me as a blind person.

I wanted them to somehow recognise me.

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