Blind Betsy
is a child prodigy of the piano doing a USO tour on the moon when the ship that
she is on crashes. To find her on the vast surface of the moon the searchers
modify a laser to carry a piano note. They section the moon into a grid assigning
each block a note. When Betsy hears one she tells them what note it is. They
then section that block into notes and repeat this process until she is found.
This is a
very simple story which I intend to do a very simple and short review on because
I haven’t been posting much because I seem to have gotten very wordy and my
fingers are tired and the job that I get paid for gets in the way of my
blogging time. Okay, I’m done whining now so here goes.
Most of us
are lucky in that we have all five senses working. We take them for granted as
we have always had them and expect to always have them. Those born without any
given sense simply don’t know what they are missing. People, blind since birth
cannot feel a loss when told of a beautiful sunset for it is a concept beyond
them. I don’t know for sure but they may very well feel that others are lying
to them about this. As an example of this, I have no extra sensory perception
and whereas the subject fascinates me I can’t help but feel sometimes that those
who claim to are just making it up.
To those who
are quote “handicapped” the world is indeed a different place. But it is not
necessarily a worst world for that. I don’t know who said this so I can’t give
proper credit but what was said is “I was
at a noisy intersection when I noticed the man in the car next to mine using
sing language to (talk) to someone on the street corner. Knowing that the
spoken language could not duplicate the feat I realized that I was the more
handicapped person here”.
We live in a
land of confusion being bombarded every day with massive amounts of
information, most of which is meaningless to us and I wonder if having a sense
not functioning does not in fact benefit the person in question. When I am
trying to learn something new I seek a quiet spot to study knowing as I do that
allowing my brain to focus on one subject will bring the most beneficial
results. A friend of mine in high school was blind but was otherwise fully
functional. He had a tendency to figure out things like how many seconds were
in a billion years or how many ounces of water were in the ocean. His mind was
free to pursue such ideas as the distractions that the sighted did not exist
for him. The story Searchlight gives
an example of just such an advantage.
Sincerely yours
The
Rational Anarchist
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