Re: If there would be a way for getting your sight back, would you do it?
OK. People have said that "blindness is not minor," "blindness is an extreme limitation," etc., and they have implied, in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, that "blindness is an extremely bad thing and it needs to be destroyed at all costs." I'm going to say that you all are wrong. Completely and totally wrong. While blindness may be a limiting factor, it is not a disease. It is not something that will cause the entire world to look down on you and say, "Oh my god, he's blind, he can't do shit!" It's very easy to tell that those who have educated you and have raised you guys to want your site back have mostly done this to you. It's very obvious. How do I know, you might ask? I'm no psychologist. Very true. But here's the major difference between you and me:
I was raised by parents who truly loved me, and by a family who pushed me to succeed, to never give up, and to always live with what I had and have, and to not play the game of 'what if'.
I have been taught two ways of life: the way of the blind person, and the way of the average person, as I call it. The way of the blind person is that of the ACB/NFB/RNIB, and other such organizations: to do one particular thing, in one particular order; to do a particular thing, and to only do that particular thing to accomplish a particular task; to be completely and totally independent, and to never ask for help, no matter if you feel it may be humiliating or not, and even if you know it is required; to read each and every manual and peace of documentation about a particular device, computer program or tool, no matter how simple or complex the item in question may be; etc. Then there is the average person: to learn variants, to self-educate, and to teach yourself and expand your mind to new heights and horizons; to discover new ways of using things, and work out your own way of working with things; to learn by experimentation and theories, not just by the "documented" way of doing things; to ask the six questions of life (What? Why? Where? Who? When? How?) and to question everything, no matter how factual or relevant it may be; to ask for help when you don't know how to do something; because you know that the person your asking might know more about the subject than you do, and, therefore, could teach you a few things you didn't know on the way; to figure out lots of ways of accomplishing one task, or lots of tasks; etc., etc. I chose the second option -- that of the average person.
I have learned, throughout my life, to completely and utterly ignore my blindness. It is there. It does exist. It is a hindrance sometimes. But, in a way, it is not there, does not exist, and is not a hindrance, because I have learned alternative ways of doing everything I have done so far. I can modify BIOS/firmware settings, with only a slight amount of help, and by mentally analyzing the possibilities of what may be available (UEFI has made this task a lot more difficult, I'll admit); I have learned to be able to alter my boot order with no assistance whatsoever by monitoring the behavior of my computer, through both light and auditory perception, when I select a boot device; I have learned to interact with certain parts of Linux when a screen reader is present and when it is not; I have learned to play video games (and will be expanding that horizon even further) without a screen reader of any kind, using the full range and depth of my auditory senses, and the analysis of my in-game surroundings; and, pretty much, have conquered every single issue raised in this topic that blindness is a limiter to. Yes, I cannot design video games in a full 3D game engine editing program like Unity or Unreal. So what? It doesn't stop me from making games and computer programs, and helping out with them, in Python or C++. Hell, I managed to install the full Unreal engine in the Epic Games launcher, which isn't even accessible, with Windows 10 OCR alone! And while I cannot tell when I have made menus graphical in a game with textures and fonts, I at least know that what I've done in the code has probably done something: either of two possibilities -- fonts or no fonts. Do I really care if it's graphical and has fonts and animations? No. Do I want it to have graphical fonts and animations? Yes. Why? Because I want my sited family, like my cousin, to be able to play the games I make, and to be able to use the software I create. Blindness is not as much as a limiter as you might think. Yes; 50 percent, if not more, of your brain is dedicated to visual perception. So? If you don't have visual perception, what does that do? It sure as fuck doesn't leave that portion of your brain doing nothing; no, your brain just allocates that dormant part of your brain to do something else. It doesn't really matter what that part is doing; the fact that it is doing something is fine. If you have light perception, perhaps that portion has been sub-allocated: 25 percent of it is allocated towards light perception, since not all of it is needed; and the other 25 percent is doing something totally different. There is no way to know. I will say this, though, to those on this topic who think blindness is a limiter that hinders your development and all that bullshit that's been spouted on this topic: you, along with the blind services who have taught you, are the closed-minded ones. It is not just the services that taught you; it is you, too. If you didn't get all depressed about your blindness being there, and if you didn't let your blindness deliberately hinder you, it wouldn't be such a problem. The thing about these kinds of things is that if you let them prevent you from doing something, they will prevent you from doing that something. But if you are determined to figure it out, in your own way, and you push them aside, and not let them limit you, they can't limit you. It's like fear, which, coincidentally, is the most powerful weapon -- even more powerful than the most deadliest of weapons we have in physical or gaseous form -- that man has ever known: if you let the fear control you, you'll never get anywhere. But if you push the fear aside, and acknowledge that, yes, you are afraid, but you know you can do it, the fear won't be so paralyzing and controlling. You'd do that with your emotions in general: if you acknowledge their existence, but don't let them control you, you'll find yourself doing exactly what your emotions told you you couldn't do just a moment before. But if you acknowledge them, but let them consume you, you'll never get anywhere. I won't even describe how important asking for help can be... I'd think that should be obvious, no matter how humiliating it is. The sited have to ask for help too, you know! Things might look easy to them most of the time, but what if their car breaks down in the middle of the road? What happens if their computer gets infected with ransomware and they aren't tech-savvy enough to know how to get rid of it? What if their computer crashes and they don't know how to fix it? What will they do, hmm? They'll call up their closest tech department and... drum roll please... ask for help!
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