independent or interdependent?
by
Carl Jarvis
As we blind men and women age, we become more aware of our need to depend upon other people and age related services.
Maybe it's time we quit selling the idea that any of us humans are truly independent. It's pretty apparent that we're all interdependent to one degree or another.
Take something as simple as the recent presidential election, To say that I just voted independently is silly talk. Even though many blind people now say that they do. And I say it, too.
But what I really did was to vote privately, not independently. I used an AutoMark voting machine which allowed me to mark my own ballot. But to use this machine I needed to have Cathy independently drive me the 24 miles to Port Townsend to the courthouse. We made our independent way to the elevator and to the auditor's office where I independently requested the headphones to the AutoMark. Then, following my independent vote, we drove to the nearest restaurant and independently ordered dinner.
I know that it is good PR for me to say that I work for the Independent Living Program for the Older Blind. It sends a much needed message to the folks who believe that the absence of eyesight deprives people of their brains. But we need to remind ourselves that it is just that, a PR tool. In fact, accommodating my needs as a blind man in an effort to live independently, actually does make me interdependent.
For example, I want to believe that marking all paper money in such a way as to allow any blind person with normal sense of touch, the ability to tell one bill from the next, will make me more independent.
But then, the person using any one of the gadgets that are now on the market, making identification of paper money possible, must be considered just as "independent". Both methods require some accommodations, making us interdependent.
For me, rather than quibbling over which method makes us more independent, we need to accept our interdependency and look for the method that makes it possible for the greatest number of blind people to individually identify their paper money.
Recently Cathy and I worked with a totally blind man who is losing his hearing. He told me, "Don't try to teach me any new skills. As soon as you stop talking, I have already forgotten what you just said." Our challenge was to assist this man to travel from his bed room to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee and take his lunch out of the refrigerator when his care givers were not present. He could not retain the directions no matter how often he travelled back and forth. He could make the short trip from bed room to bath room. So we tied a rope from the bath room, around through the dining room and into the kitchen. We fastened the end of the rope to the freezer door. Did using the rope make this man more dependent, or did finding his way to the kitchen make him more independent? We look at it as having solved a need.
Solving one problem at a time does give people a sense of accomplishment. If they see that as being more independent, more power to them.
Frankly, I think that there are two words that cause blind people great grief.
Independent and normal.
I am neither independent nor am I normal.
As a member of the human race, I am interdependent in all sorts of ways, both with my fellow human beings as well as with Mother Earth. And as far as normal goes, I have no idea what that means.
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