Hi. Friday evening and it is kicking up a good thunderstorm…Gee, how novel.
I am still back on why people don’t come out of the visually impaired “closet”. I had a client today who has a rare medical condition and does not want to share with colleagues either. Once again I am made aware of something and examples of that same thing pop up like toadstools.
Anyway, he basically said if people know he is different, he will be treated differently. Made me think: how different are we?
Looking on the web I discovered in a December 2, 2014, Newsroom article that at that time 40% of the population 65 and over had a disability. This was 15.7 million people! Now granted, the largest group was mobility issues but vision problems came in fifth.
In other words, once you hit 65, you can expect nearly half of your peers to have some sort of disability. Everyone into the pool! Maybe we are not so different after all.
If you are religious or have an interest in philosophy you have heard people say pain and suffering are part of the human condition. They just affirm we are human. They allow us to join others and experience being human together.
Ok. They have a point. Shared adversity often binds people together. Anything else?
Todd Hall in 8 Ways You Can Grow from Suffering has a couple of points I found interesting. Hill’s fifth point was suffering deepens our appreciation of our vulnerability. We are all vulnerable. For example, this time places flooded that I cannot remember flooding before. Houses on hills got water-filled basements. The Fates are capricious. It is the human condition: we are vulnerable.
Hall’s sixth point is suffering allow us to accept our limitations. He pointed out acceptance of limitations takes much less energy than it does to fight it. There is a certain peace in that.
Having limitations binds us to the rest of humanity. Remember “No Man is an Island?” In our limitations, we reach out both to ask for and offer help. In others words, it is not just shared adversity that can bind us together but individual adversity as well.
So, the truth of the matter is, having a disability does not make us different from much of the rest of humanity. We are not the odd men out. And if you factor in the vulnerability factor – bad things could happen to anyone at any time – each of us is just one of seven billion in the same fix. The fix we are in is being human.
One last thing before I close. There is only one letter different between human and humane. It is, of course, the “e” although it would have worked out better if it were a “u”. If it were a “u”, I could have been really glib and said “you” coming out of the “closet” about your vision loss and joining in would allow the humans around you to become humane. Compassionate, one of the virtues is expressed and strengthened in the presence of suffering.
Pretty good argument? But what do I know? I am, after all, only human.
Written August 17th, 2018