“Sight Unseen” – the window into the blind’s world

Ngan T. Nguyen (Jasmine)
Intro to Psychology
Professor Joan Ostrove
February 16, 2014
“Sight Unseen” – the window into the blind’s world
I spent the last weekends enjoying the book “Sight Unseen,” the interesting account of the blindness and sight by Georgina Kleege. The introduction struck me with that clear and strong statement: “Writing this book made me blind” (Kleege 1). Then, Kleege explained, writing this book helps her reflect not only how little she actually can see but also how sighted she is. The beautiful writing style filled with a lot of vivid examples and images as well as detailed description engaged me to see the world from the very different perspective: without vision.
What surprised me most is that the book is written by the blind, but I never saw any depressing tone or complaint in the whole reading. While people become so fearful of blindness especially in this visually dependent era, the author even claimed:” Blindness is normal to me” (Kleege 4). To illustrate that blindness is not frightening, she suggested the audience breaks the absolute dependence on the eyesight. “Simply close your eyes”, she encouraged, “you can still think, remember, feel” (Kleege 32). This interaction with audience made her more convincing and trustworthy writer, also relieving the reader’s fear of blindness. As curious, I followed her instruction to experience being blind feeling. I closed my eyes and heard people talking outside my room. Only after few minutes, I could recognize different voices in the hall way. This was really interesting experience for me! I realize that people sense our environment not only through sight but also through touch, taste, sound, and smell. How people interpret these sensations makes the difference in perception of each individual.
I love the clear, engaging, and easy-to-picture way she describes her daily activities without eyesight. Her appealing writing style with detailed descriptions and vivid examples made me feel I really put myself into her shoes and experienced the world from the perspective of the blind who found the beauty and optimism in the blindness. For example, despite blindness, she still went to the exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She depicted carefully what and how she saw, and the way her brain perceive that information. As the blind, she took more time and effort to look at the painting, but she enjoyed the personal discoveries that totally different from the sighted. For example, she found out that “up close, Monet’s waterlilies are wonderfully crusty, while at a distance they look almost liquid” (Kleege 94). Georgina knew how to make her story interesting to readers by imagining the argument with the man who objected her experience with the painting. She strongly refuted his excuse by saying that “I see what I sense is there, what I know is there, what I hope is there, not necessarily what actually is” (Kleege 96). I realized that what people see and how they process that information are very different. What people sensed can be altered, edited, and changed by the mind, subject to different moods, expectations and values. This story made me relate to my own personal experience. I still remembered at around 10 years old, I lost my mom in the supermarket. I was so anxious that in the haste to meet her, I saw nothing between me and her, even the big stone on the ground. I fell as the result. This experience again showed that the brain sometimes ignores part of the image that the eyes receive to focus on other parts. The world is not always as the way I see it, but the way I think about it.
Kleege also dispelled the ugly myth about the blind as tragic and miserable. She told the story of how she still could perceive the pictures, dance, find things and other daily activities as the sighted people. I could see that the brain is the complex; while the vision part was impaired, the other parts still functioned well and adjusted to the inability of the vision. Georgina was evidence to prove that the blind could still be as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the sighted.
As a sighted reader, I had a chance to imagine about the life without eyesight and dismantle the wrong myths about the blind. I also felt awed at the marvel of our brain. People have very different ways of sensing the environment, leading to different perception. Applying this thought to my life, I became more open minded to dismantle the prejudice and myths about people with disabilities.