Actually, since I argue that given new experiences, new relationships and access to new ideas, there is always the possibility that something might manage to reconfigure my current frame of mind, there is never not any hope at all. And the glumness does not extend to all of the things I do in which I am anything but glum. Instead, it revolves more around the assumption that in the absence of God – just another assumption – there does not appear to be a way [for me] to make any objective, wholly true distinction between good and bad behaviors. I can only try to be as tolerant of others as I can and to minimize any harm I might do. Everything here is far more precarious and problematic given what I have thought myself into believing. I’m not part of a community that provides the sort of meaning that you have in being a Pagan. The sort of meaning I had as a Christian or a political activist. I’m just not able [here and now] to imagine a way back to it. But that might change.
Again, I am far, far removed from understanding what motivates you here. That is a part of your world and I know almost nothing about it. I can only imagine that if I were blind interacting in a community of sighted people, I would want to include others in that community who shared something with me as fundamental as this. But then that is a frame of mind rooted in the existential parameters of my own life.
Not sure what you mean by this. I am curious about your relationships in the Pagan community. I am trying to understand what it might be like to be a part of a community in which what most consider to be an important part of their life – the ability to see – sets you apart from all of the others. Just as the manner in which my own philosophy of life often set me apart from others in the past. The part where we seek others who are like us in order to share experiences more fully, more intimately.
Thanks. My own favorite rendition is this one: youtu.be/w9TbiIEpZJ8
These two songs [from Enya] just popped up on my cassettes:
youtu.be/whIYv3_CvqU
youtu.be/Fp5t2yIiR-U
Yes, that’s well put. Eighty pages into the book, and a lot of what has unfolded so far fits the “nasty, violent and selfish” description. But the author, José Saramago, is no hack. Among other things, he is the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. What I am most curious about is why he chose Blindness as the title of the book. Perhaps it is less in regard to blindness literally and more in the way of a metaphor. How, in many important respects, we are all blind to important things around us. And how this blindness allows those in power – his capital letter Government – to create the conditions that the literally blind in the story are enduring. Increasingly more appalling. That’s what keeps me reading…to find out what blindness he is talking about.
What I will do is finish the book and come up with my own conclusions. And then I will go on line and Google reviews of the book. To note the conclusions of others.
Again, really well put. But what always intrigues me is why actual individuals go in what some construe to be constructive directions, while others choose destructive directions instead. And, just as importantly, what happens when behaviors that are deemed constructive by some are seen to be destructive by others. How is all of this more a manifestation of the lives that we lived predisposing us existentially to go in these different directions; or, instead, more as derived [philosophically, scientifically, spiritually etc.] from our capacity as rational and virtuous human beings to “think up” the “right thing to do”?
One of the points I always raise on the philosophy board here revolves around the part where how we view ourselves in the world around us is – or can be – profoundly dependent on the historical age in which we were raised. Surely, the manner in which folks back in Medieval Britain reacted to the world around them is going to be different – sometimes very different – from how modern day British citizens see things like government, social interactions, gender roles, plaques, etc… Maybe even blindness itself?
And yet at the same time, there are all the things we share in common as members of the human species. The things that are always true for all of us and the things that seem, instead, to provoke conflicting thoughts and feelings.
That’s always what most attracts and intrigues me.
Out of curiosity, I Googled “blindness in the Middle Ages” and found this: historicengland.org.uk/research … 1050-1485/
“Attitudes to disability were mixed. People thought it was a punishment for sin, or the result of being born under the hostile influence of the planet Saturn. Others believed that disabled people were closer to God - they were suffering purgatory on earth rather than after death and would get to heaven sooner.”
Yes, for those who are blind from birth, there always seems to be the part – the consolation? – where they don’t have to think they have lost something…or to experience the reality of actually having lost their vision. But then the part where from time to time they can’t help but wonder what it is like to see the world around them. Especially if they don’t believe in the afterlife. Something like, “this life is all there is and I will never see it”.
Just think of the part where in “falling in love” many sighted people can become obsessed with “looks”. Is she pretty? Is he handsome? And sometimes in putting too much emphasis on that they choose the wrong partner. So, the first thing that might pop into the head of sighted people, is how not having the capacity to assess “looks”, affects those who are blind in regard to their own relationships.
Or imagine a sighted person who was preoccupied with looks in a relationship, losing his or her sight and then engaging in future relationships.
Again, all the complexities and uncertainties involved here.