Weekend-Engagement #273: If you went blind overnight what aspects of your life would you miss the most and why?

If tomorrow morning I woke up blind, what would I miss the most? A question that seems to expect a simple answer and yet it’s not like that, I had to think about it for a few minutes, because clearly it’s easy to write about practically anything since we “live” mostly through our eyes, but I wanted to stop and reflect on something that truly has value beyond the banalities.

Chichén Itzá, Mexico

The first thing I thought of is my son. I would miss so much seeing him play, with his tracks and his little cars; when he looks at me to call me a hundred thousand times a day and talk to me or laugh, because let’s be honest, eye contact is something completely different from simply hearing a voice, eyes communicate too; seeing him grow up to know what kind of man he’ll become one day and why not, criticize how he cuts his hair, if he dresses in a way I don’t like, because in the end we parents do this for sport. But losing all of this, now that would be horrible for me.

Porto Santo wind mills

The second thing that came to mind is the possibility of seeing the world; I love to travel and I’ve always done it every year since I started working and can therefore afford it, at least until covid came along and the baby was born, always going to new and different places, with varied cultures and populations. If you can’t see, how can you admire the charm of ancient monuments, of the past history they tell, but also how those same countries look now in modern times? I’ve seen the Knossos temple in Greece, so famous in school books; I’ve seen the Mayan pyramids in Mexico and I climbed to the top of one of them seeing the forest from above (see picture below), how could I have done that blind? And there are still so many things I’d like to see beyond the small fraction I’ve seen so far.

On the top of Koba, Mexico, nowadays it's not allowed anymore to climb up.

Third and last thing, driving. I don’t think a car for blind people exists yet and not being able to see would mean not being able to drive anymore. I wouldn’t miss driving itself, I’m not a car or driving enthusiast, what I would miss is the independence that being able to drive a car gives you. If I need something far away, I take the car and go; I feel like going for a ride, I take the car and go wherever I want; if I couldn’t drive anymore everything would change, I’d always have to rely on others, ask if they’re available and count on them… I would lose all the independence of being able to manage on my own, and let’s be honest, at first maybe they’ll do it but after a while they get annoyed at playing chauffeur…

These are the things I would suffer the most if I became blind, because while for example for reading, walking and other things there are solutions out there, for those three things there aren’t… and that would be a real loss.

Random photos taken in my trips
Post in response to @galenkp Weekend-Engagement topics: WEEK273