Thank you for clarifying, Phil. Your post, while short, was certainly full of insight and helped me to understand what you were after.
@arq,
Because apologizing for what I stated above would compromise precisely what I stated above, I'm afraid I cannot in good conscience say I'm sorry. This is not a standard I simply hold other people to and am admonishing others for; it's what I expect of myself. Let me say that once again; I expect it of myself. Were I to say this and not actively practice it I would be a hypocrite on so many levels. I pondered it for hours and discussed it with my father before posting it, who not only agreed, but also gave me a bit I didn't actually place up here which to me was an eye opener; no pun intended. He stated emphatically that any blind people who refused to deal with this aspect of life were not only doing themselves a disservice by not integrating with the sighted world, but were being selfish in that by doing so one deprives every day people of knowing them for who and what they truly are rather than just seeing them as blind entities. Certainly there will always be ignorance from sighted individuals, but that goes along another discussion that was brought up in the past on this forum not too long ago about how the nature of humankind is judgmental by default.
Every thing we do, every decision we make from our choice of words to the way we dress sends a message and gives someone else a perception, and every perception will be at the very least, slightly different from the next or result in extreme difference. Take your post and Phil's for instance. While you might have seen my post as something that could be construed as lashing out and categorizing this particular forum, he saw it as an opportunity to further elaborate on what he hopes will arise as the result of his project, and as far as I can tell, was not at all personally offended, which brings me to what I will appologise for.
I'm sorry you took such a personal stance on the issue, sorry that the few words in post 14 that I dedicated to the fact that I have indeed met quite a few people on this forum and off of it in the blind community as a whole with whom I have held many a great conversation and have colaberated with in the past wasn't enough to persuade you that I wasn't after you or anyone else on this forum for any reason, not to categorise or antagonize or anything else of a negative nature. I'm sorry you believe I wasn't thinking before I posted all of the above, because I gave it as much contemplation as I could, have been giving it a lot of contemplation over the past 4 or 5 years, and have always drawn the same conclusions. I'm sorry I hurt or disappointed you in any way, particularly since we're supposed to be working together, and because my aim was not to pull anyone down; quite the contrary. If there's anything that being in wrestling taught me though, it's that sometimes the truth is brutal; plain and simple. It needs to be spoken as it is, not sugarcoated or beaten and grounded to paste by political correctness.
all that aside, for anyone else who might feel offended by it, I will clarify again. for those of you who have already made it out of this so-called category I seemed to have created without wanting to or who are trying their hardest to do so, congratulations. My hat would be off to you but I have none. Keep going; don't ever believe you're less than a person with just as much right as any other person. For those of you who haven't, this isn't a rant and rave about how everyone who decides to partake in such actions as simply talking to blind people is worthless or useless or anything negative; indeed it is because I've seen what this community as a whole is capable of that I write everything I write. There are many other things I could be doing right now, relaxing being one of them. What I want you to know is that because my hope for the community as a whole is as much prosperity as possible in a world that is already tough enough for sighted people to deal with, it may be necessary to reevaluate and consider all of the options on the table.
History tells us about a man named Niccolò Paganini , a great violinist, composer and overall musician. During one of his performances, a string broke on his violin. For those of you who do not recognize the instrument, the violin has four strings, and one might argue that every single one of them is critical to the instrument and the style of music it plays. To Paganini, a string breaking was nothing but a thing. he continued playing, undaunted by the fact that he had just lost an essential part of what seemed to make him a violin virtuoso.
As he progressed, yet another string decided it had had enough and joined the first. Left with only two strings, Paganini might have been tempted to quit; we may never know. What we do know is that he continued playing as though nothing had yet happened. Nearing the end of the peace he was performing, a third string was subtracted from his seemingly doomed, possibly sabotaged instrument. In spite of this he finished the peace and was given a standing ovation. As people made to leave, assuming that his performance was over now that his instrument was pretty much done for, he was said to have shouted before beginning to play anew,"Variations on One String!"
The stories surrounding Paganini may be nothing more than legend; some people believe he broke strings on purpose to show off his talents. The end result is still the same though; one string. Weather all of the rest broke on their own or he broke them, he proved that being on your last string didn't have to be the end. Blindness is like that. Some people have had it through their entire lives. Some people are only now coming to grips with it after having it forced upon them. We are not, however, down to our last string. How then, can we give up on the world as a whole when a man's tenacity to be the best at all times proved to us that it could be done with little? life is short; no one knows just how long any of us will live it. what we do know is that we have the ability to define our disability rather than letting it define us. What is blindness and how does it affect us as a whole? The world has a right to know, and who better to tell the world than those of us who are going through it?
When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.