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“Essentially the most lovely issues on the earth can’t be seen… they should be felt with the center.” ~Helen Keller
I didn’t need to admit it—to not myself, to not anybody. However I’m slowly going blind.
That fact is tough to write down, tougher nonetheless to reside. I’m seventy years outdated. I’ve survived conflict zones, sickness, caregiving, and inventive dangers. I’ve labored as a documentary filmmaker, trainer, and mentor. However this—this quiet, gradual vanishing of sight—feels just like the loneliest battle of all.
I’ve average to superior macular degeneration in each eyes. My proper eye is almost gone, and my left is fading. Each two weeks, I obtain injections to attempt to protect what imaginative and prescient stays. It’s a routine I now reside with—and one I dread.
Residing in a Imaginative and prescient-Centric World
We reside in a world that privileges sight above all different senses.
From billboards to smartphones, from flashy design to social cues, imaginative and prescient is the dominant sense in American tradition. In case you can’t see clearly, you fall behind. You’re missed. The world stops making house for you.
Is one sense really extra beneficial than one other? Philosophically, no. However socially, sure. On this tradition, blindness is feared, pitied, or ignored—not understood. And so are most disabilities.
Accessibility is commonly an afterthought. Lodging, a burden. To reside in a disabled physique on this world is to be reminded—time and again—that your wants are inconvenient.
I consider individuals in different international locations—hundreds of thousands with out entry to care and even analysis. I thank the deities, ancestors, and forces of compassion that I don’t have one thing worse. And I remind myself: as painful as that is, I’m fortunate.
However it’s nonetheless bleak and painful to coexist with the bodily world when it not sees you clearly—and when you may not see it.
How a Filmmaker Faces Blindness
As my sight fades, one query haunts me: How can I be a filmmaker, author, and trainer with out the eyes I as soon as relied on?
I usually consider Beethoven. He misplaced his listening to step by step, as I’m dropping my sight. A composer who may not hear—however nonetheless created. Nonetheless transmitted music. Nonetheless discovered magnificence in silence.
I perceive his despair—and his devotion. No, I’m not Beethoven. However I’m somebody whose life has been formed by visible storytelling. And now I need to be taught to form it by really feel, by reminiscence, by belief.
I depend on accessibility instruments. I pay attention to each phrase I write. I take advantage of audio cues, display screen readers, and my very own inside voice. I nonetheless write in move after I can—however extra slowly, phrase by phrase. I revise by sound. I rebuild by sense. I write proprioceptively—feeling the form of a sentence in my fingers and breath earlier than it lands on the display screen.
It’s not environment friendly. But it surely’s alive. And in some methods, it’s extra sincere than earlier than.
Attempt ordering groceries with low imaginative and prescient. Tiny grey textual content on a white background. Menus with no labels. Buttons you may’t discover. After ten minutes, I hand over—not simply on the web site, however on dinner, on the day.
That is what incapacity seems to be like within the digital age: Not darkness, however exclusion. Not silence, however indifference.
Even with instruments, even with know-how, it’s exhausting. The web—an area with a lot potential to empower—too usually turns into a maze for individuals who can’t see clearly. It’s bleak to reside in a world that provides options in idea, however not in apply.
I nonetheless train. I nonetheless mentor. However the best way I train has modified.
I not depend on visible suggestions. I ask college students to explain their work aloud. I pay attention carefully—for which means, for emotion, for readability of objective. I information not by trying, however by sensing.
This isn’t lower than—it’s totally different. Generally richer. Educating has turn out to be extra relational, extra intentional. Not about being the professional, however about being current.
And nonetheless, I miss what I had. Each job takes extra time. Each electronic mail is a mountain. However I stick with it—not out of stubbornness, however as a result of that is who I’m. A trainer. A creator. A witness.
Buddhism, Impermanence, and Grief
So the place do I put this ache?
Buddhism helps. It teaches that each one types are impermanent. Sight fades. Our bodies change. Clinging brings struggling. However letting go—softly, attentively—can carry peace.
That doesn’t imply I bypass grief. I reside with it. I breathe with it.
There’s a Zen story of a person who misplaced an arm. Somebody requested him how he was coping. He replied, “It’s as if I misplaced a jewel. However the moon nonetheless shines.”
I consider that always.
I’ve misplaced a jewel. However I nonetheless see the moon. Generally not with my eyes, however with reminiscence, with feeling, with breath.
The Knowledge of Slowness
My writing is sluggish now. Not as a result of I’ve misplaced my voice, however as a result of I need to hear it in a different way.
I nonetheless expertise move—however not within the outdated approach. I write phrase by phrase. Then I pay attention. Then I rewrite. I transfer like somebody strolling throughout a darkish room, arms outstretched—not afraid, however attentive.
That is how I create now. Intentionally. Tenderly. With presence.
And on this sluggish, tough course of, I’ve discovered one thing sudden: a deeper connection to my very own language. A deeper longing to make others really feel one thing true.
At the same time as I fade from the visible world, I’m discovering a brand new strategy to see.
What I Nonetheless Supply
If there’s one factor I can provide—via blindness, grief, and slowness—it’s this: We don’t lose ourselves after we lose talents or roles. We’re not disappearing. We’re nonetheless right here. Simply doing issues in a different way—extra slowly, extra attentively, and maybe with a deeper sense of which means.
In the future, I’ll not have the ability to see the display screen in any respect. However I’ll nonetheless be a author. Nonetheless be a trainer. Nonetheless be somebody who sees, within the ways in which matter most.
Even when the sunshine goes out in my eyes, it doesn’t should exit in my voice.
And in the event you’re studying this, then the hassle was price it.
About Tony CollinsTony Collins, EdD, MFA, is a author, documentary filmmaker, and educator whose work explores presence, creativity, and which means in on a regular basis life. His essays mix storytelling and reflection within the model of artistic nonfiction, drawing on experiences from filmmaking, journey, and caregiving. He’s the writer of Inventive Scholarship: Rethinking Analysis in Movie and New Media Home windows to the Sea: Collected Writings. You may learn extra of his essays and reflections on his Substack at tonycollins.substack.com.
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