Would you live your life mute & deaf or blind?

[Chronopolize]

If it hasn't already been made clear, this thread is not meant to tactlessly throw around the ideas of disabilities (sound familiar?), but rather explore the implications of said disabilities (from an average's person's perspective) and question what you value. Picking one's words when talking about this kind of deal is pretty hard (read: impossible), so just ease up a little. I know it sounds callous when you quickly refer back and forth between blindness and deafness, etc. like they are things to be chosen or toyed around with, but really there is no way around it, other than being hopelessly superfluous and roundabout. What is written has no malice or contempt behind it, it might be accurate to say it is just taboo.

[Althamus]

Something that I just thought of regarding this topic. IMHO going deaf later in life would be easier for a person than being born deaf, however being born blind would be easier then going blind later in life.

If you were born blind, you would never know what things looked like, would have no frame of reference for colours, and would only know things by their shapes and how you could interpret that in your mind. However, going through childhood blind I would've thought would help your other senses develop far more than going blind later in life. Lilly's other senses are far stronger than normal people's because she has worked on them and relied on them so much more. I wouldn't expect an adult going blind to establish such control over their other senses.

By contrast, the only correlation between deafness and being mute is that if you are deaf, you cannot hear how you sound. Therefore many people who are born deaf will never properly be able to speak because they don't know how the words should sound, so cannot properly form them. A certain amount are able to talk, but their speech is very different from a 'normal person's, which I'd imagine often makes them the source of ridicule amongst less understanding people. IMHO Shizune purposely decides not to learn to talk because with her personality, being laughed at would be far worse than not being able to talk.
However, if you aren't born deaf, you would learn to speak as normal, and going deaf later in life is unlikely to remove that ability. If you learnt to lip read, for years after the accident I would imagine you would be able to hold normal conversations with people by reading their lips and replying back to them normally. It obviously would still be a big disadvantage, for if someone behind you called to you for example, but the impact would be lessened.

[Thrasher Thetic]

Deaf/Mute. I could still play hockey, read, and enjoy a good story in a videogame without hearing any of it. Although a big part of the experience of games like Bastion would be lost if there were no sound. Oh, and I suppose I could still work in my profession (cnc machinist) and, you know, continue earning income without interruption.

[charmisokay]

I have no idea of what I would chose, given I had a choice - for I have not lived one day without either.

[metalangel]

Deaf/mute. My partner broke her glasses and is struggling without while a new pair is made, and said absolutely deaf/mute too.

[Axelownz]

To be honest i dont know. I know that i would get super depressed for a long while if either happened, since it would be such a huge change and i would loose alot of what i take for granted now with either one.

If i was deaf/mute i would miss music so much and probably get depressed at the sudden wall when speaking to people. I am pretty reserved and dont talk much, and i think this would make me hardly ever talk at all. No music would kill me though and i would only have the songs i already know running through my head, but it would be bad knowing i could never hear them again. I would have to be transferred at work though, since my job would be very dangerous without hearing, you would probably get run over or crushed.

Blindness i think would be just as hard if not harder. Moving around would so difficult to get used to and the stuff i do for hobbies are so visual i would get depressed real easy. Suddenly getting on the internet, reading manga, video games all that stuff would not be really possible anymore. I would probably listen to music as my main hobby then. I know i would be transferred at work, not being able to see would be even more hazardous with what i do than not hearing.

Both would be really hard, and pretty traumatic to try and adjust to, i really just cant decide.

[Hitman3256]

Being sick today, with a nasty sore throat, I haven't been able to talk to people. So I've been carrying around a piece of paper to right stuff down on. And I thought about Shizune....

To me though, it wasn't annoying that I wast understood sometimes, just different. If I was only mute I could definitely live like that. What I did notice though, and appreciate, was that my closer friends understood me for the most part when I signaled or pointed to something, we make a lot of jokes and I was happy I could still contribute because they knew me so well.

[Lurker.No9]

I'd much rather be blind. Being blind would make it much harder to interact with the physical world of stairs and rocks and cars, sure. But being deaf & mute would make it harder to interact with people. And interaction with people is much more important to all of us than interaction with the physical world. I don't just mean emotionally - I mean practically, too. A person by herself is vulnerable to the tides of fortune, no matter how much she might kid herself that she is strong and in control. No one can control the physical world enough to give herself safety. But in a group, while we still can't control the world, we can at least support each other enough to insulate ourselves from the worst the world throws. So I would much rather be blind and isolated from the physical world, than deaf & mute and isolated from the social world.

[toxicmaniac]

I would go with mute/deaf if i get my own personal Misha with it.

[tmhizzy]

I'd rather go blind, because I like sound more than like seeing. It seems weird, but I find more comfort in hearing people rather than seeing them. Sure seeing a person makes me happy, but hearing for me brings something so much more. Imagine you see a person, but they don't talk to you at all, compared this to being in a different place, but hearing a person talking to you. Not seeing somebody also makes little interactions like touching mean so much more. Sure I'd have to give up a lot, but what I'd lose would be much worse. Just my two cents.

[AnonymousOfNorway]

I'd much rather be blind. Being blind would make it much harder to interact with the physical world of stairs and rocks and cars, sure. But being deaf & mute would make it harder to interact with people.

Same here. I assume we're talking about being both mute and deaf though. If I was deaf, but could lip-read and speak, then it gets much harder to choose which sense would be worst to lose. It would also depend on the environment, i.e. is it in the developed world with all available assistance, or in a third world country where I had to fend more for myself and perhaps disabilities are looked down upon as a punishment from the gods, or is it in a deaf community which commonly discriminates against the hearing?
I went to school with a couple of blind kids and have a blind neighbor, so I guess that influences my choice too.

[geekahedron]

I had the strangest dream last night. Something happened (no clue what) that left me blind for a period of time, and after some time I was able to get around with "Lilly-level" aptitude. After my sight returned (no clue how), I just closed my eyes a lot and kept living as if I were blind because life was simpler that way.

Weird, eh? Dunno what, if anything, to make of it, but it was an interesting notion to say the least. Almost want to try it for a day, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be received too well by people around me.

Edit: Actually, I just recalled something that may have influenced it. I went out to eat last night and saw someone I knew, a former classmate's mother, helping an elderly gentleman out of the restaurant and into a car. At first he just looked, well, old, but as he approached the stairs I observed (I was holding the door) that he seemed to be completely blind. Maybe due to a combination of factors, but the whole process seemed to take much longer than I ever would have anticipated. I wager that got me started thinking about how I would handle it if I were blind, and if it really is common to find blind people in the real world as capable as Lilly seems to be.

Just throwing thoughts out there, idk. Really foreign territory for me...

[Deadeye]

I would most certainly choose being blind. As someone said I much rather have the ability to interact with people over objects. Sure videogames are nice, but what fun would they be if you couldn't hear anything. And I don't know how I would go without music, My memory works by attaching songs to certain memories. Say when I heard the news that my friend passed from a car accident I was listening to Breaking Benjamin's "So Cold." So now whenever I hear that song I remember that event. But all my memories that I can remember are attached to many different songs. My library is well over several thousand songs and it consumes a large portion of my computers memory. But losing music would be losing my memories, that on top of losing almost all forms of casual conversation abilities outside of pen and paper would be too much.

That said I think it would be easier to be independent with being deaf/mute over being blind. Still have the ability to drive, not legally I'd assume but you could. Can travel the town on your own. And know what food you were grabbing when you're in the store, that's if you get to the store and not mistake it for some other store.

"Why is that man buying tampons?"
"Buying tampons? I'm more curious why he tried to eat them."