This American Life recently launched a new podcast called Invisibilia. The show’s focus is on exploring “the intangible forces that shape human behavior – things like ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions.” Episode 1 introduces Daniel Kish, known as Batman, blinded at 13 months by a tumor, who “taught himself to see” using tongue clicks as a type of radar. But the episode really deals with the delicate balance between managing risk and danger, and Kish not only is willing bu insists on going beyond what many consider “safe.” Today in a special way it makes me think of my mother. She was not a stranger to risk nor did she overvalue safety.
The podcast moves from the initial amazement of the sighted at seeing someone blind negate stereotypes by riding a bike, climbing a tree, or going for a walk in the woods, which I think Kish barely tolerates, to a serious conversation about risk. Kish, like Mom and Gramps, sees risk avoidance as a major problem. In fact, he sees sighted people often unconsciously oppress and limit the blind with their concern that for safety. Ahh, Mom so agreed with him on this. During the interview, reference is made to one of his colleagues, who worked in a paint factory prior to losing his sight. The blinded worker, and many of his co-workers, believed him capable of returning to that job. He want to an agency for the blind, and here’s what he was told
Oh, no. You can’t do that. Blind people can’t do those things. What we’re going to do is put you through a program of rehabilitation and then move you along to our sheltered workshop that manufactures mops and brooms.
Ahh, this rings true. There are stories of my Grandfather at the Association for the Blind only being allowed to cane chairs. Same gig. A “superior” sighted person informing the poor, misguided blinkie that it wouldn’t be safe for them to do anything outside of a sheltered workshop.
Which brings me to the point of this walk down memory lane. Something I learned from my mother and I hope to pass on to future generations:
Safe is not all it’s cut out to be.
Kish talks about the importance of risk and taking chances in educating the blind. He tells the story of a godmother unwilling to let her blind godson get too close to the road as she feared he might possibly be hit by a car. Kish noted:
Often sighted people will jump in a half a second too soon, and they rob the blind student from that learning moment. And that just keeps happening over and over again, and I think so many blind people’s lives, they never get that moment of what it is to really have that self-confidence to trust your senses to know, oh, if I do use my cane properly and I am listening attentively to information around me, I’ll be OK.
Frankly, my mother argued that this is true for her sighted children as well as for herself and her father. 26 years after Mom left us, I’m more convinced than ever that she’s right. All of us, sighted or not, can loose that “learning moment” if risk is avoided, if safety is the only concern, if there isn’t a focus on more than our comfort zone. Safe is not all it’s cut out to be. It can leave you blind and very alone.
Mom was no fool, nor did she tolerate fools well. Managing risk is not foolhardiness or stupidity. It’s living. And until that cold March night 26 years ago tonight, how my mother did live.