Would you live your life mute & deaf or blind?
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:17 pm
I've been thinking about the this for the last week or so, and still have yet to come to a conclusion. Here is a collection of thoughts. There is way too much to cover. Being just in the process of finishing Shizune's arc (my final arc playthrough, my thoughts may be noticeably more directed towards the former. One thing I would add, is that in the game, arguably more attention is devoted towards Shizune's disability and it's role/effect, then Lilly's. http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=5080 is a story that I believe shows this quite a bit (it is a good read, as well). One should consider how both girls got to the state they were in. I'm assuming that they can be taken as a unparallelledly unique parallel to the real world.
Practicality
Navigation: It is clear that vision is most important. Deafness may require you to seriously consider looking across the street before you cross, but having to commit locations to memory (I find that very amazing, how people do that), and the difficulty in dealing with unknown/crowded places or places which involve more than simple walking. There are people who have defied this to the impossible: scaling Everest blind, but as a typical person it is a real problem.
The internet:
As an prolific internet user, having sight is critical. Text can be read using a text reader, but images and various forms of video are more complicated (e.g a VN). Video is an interesting topic. I think most video can be enjoyed with deafness or blindness, and long as there are CC, and there are not large/important stretches without audio ques.
Reading:
There is braille text, but braille has its limitations. It's larger to print, requires special paper. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille is an interesting read. But there problem of availability. It's like how it would be like for us English Speakers to view foreign media (like anime etc), if there were no online subbers.
Writing:
I'm not sure. Can you write blind? Typing definitely available.
Social Interaction
Day to Day stuff:
As you might expect, not being able to speak OR hear what someone is saying is a big deal. Shizune had Misha, as an interpretation, but what if this was not the case. One can get by passable without speaking, you can gesture your intention, headnod, wave, point to select, etc. In this area, it would be EXTREMELY helpful to be able to read lips, allowing the person being spoken to be able to respond without limitation or misinterpretation. In either case, using a notepad and a pen, you should be able order something like food, without issue. It would be rather confusing and unexpected for the other people, but that is the case either way.
Being blind, it's much harder to order things, you can't see what's on menus.
Ok by this point I realize I have a pretty shallow understand of the implications of things, so I'll just state what options there are. Feel free to expand or comment on them.
Conversation:
You can read lips (I don't know to what degree that can substitute), that requires line of sight. If you cannot, pen and paper is the only concretely detailed way to communicate, and most people will not wish to write down everything they say, unless they are directly addressing you. This creates a wall that basically prevents uncommitted interaction (which carries over to signing, I suppose).
Being blind, there's the problem of remembering people (It seems like remembering people is an almost universal skill, though remembering names is not) merely through voices.
Personality/Personal Values (What it probably boils down to)
What couldn't you live without? Music? Images? What method of expressing yourself couldn't you give up? How would you want to life your life?
Edit: added a poll, try to think about it before reaching a conclusion, you can change your vote though.
Practicality
Navigation: It is clear that vision is most important. Deafness may require you to seriously consider looking across the street before you cross, but having to commit locations to memory (I find that very amazing, how people do that), and the difficulty in dealing with unknown/crowded places or places which involve more than simple walking. There are people who have defied this to the impossible: scaling Everest blind, but as a typical person it is a real problem.
The internet:
As an prolific internet user, having sight is critical. Text can be read using a text reader, but images and various forms of video are more complicated (e.g a VN). Video is an interesting topic. I think most video can be enjoyed with deafness or blindness, and long as there are CC, and there are not large/important stretches without audio ques.
Reading:
There is braille text, but braille has its limitations. It's larger to print, requires special paper. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille is an interesting read. But there problem of availability. It's like how it would be like for us English Speakers to view foreign media (like anime etc), if there were no online subbers.
Writing:
I'm not sure. Can you write blind? Typing definitely available.
Social Interaction
Day to Day stuff:
As you might expect, not being able to speak OR hear what someone is saying is a big deal. Shizune had Misha, as an interpretation, but what if this was not the case. One can get by passable without speaking, you can gesture your intention, headnod, wave, point to select, etc. In this area, it would be EXTREMELY helpful to be able to read lips, allowing the person being spoken to be able to respond without limitation or misinterpretation. In either case, using a notepad and a pen, you should be able order something like food, without issue. It would be rather confusing and unexpected for the other people, but that is the case either way.
Being blind, it's much harder to order things, you can't see what's on menus.
Ok by this point I realize I have a pretty shallow understand of the implications of things, so I'll just state what options there are. Feel free to expand or comment on them.
Conversation:
You can read lips (I don't know to what degree that can substitute), that requires line of sight. If you cannot, pen and paper is the only concretely detailed way to communicate, and most people will not wish to write down everything they say, unless they are directly addressing you. This creates a wall that basically prevents uncommitted interaction (which carries over to signing, I suppose).
Being blind, there's the problem of remembering people (It seems like remembering people is an almost universal skill, though remembering names is not) merely through voices.
Personality/Personal Values (What it probably boils down to)
What couldn't you live without? Music? Images? What method of expressing yourself couldn't you give up? How would you want to life your life?
Edit: added a poll, try to think about it before reaching a conclusion, you can change your vote though.
I've also played music for 7 years now, and it'd be nice to still be able to... you know, do it.