Blind or Deaf?

[Drealm]

You have to choose between the two for the rest of your life. What's your choice?

As much as I like music, being blind is a hard choice...do we love music that much?!

I still can't decide...

[gryphon]

I'll go for deaf..................reason you can still use your sense of feeling to appreciate sound ( Beethoven did) don't think there is an equivalent for light

[Tiggi]

With extreme reluctance, I'd have to agree...

[Music Head]

As much as I love my music, I'd have to choose deaf.
You can still get wound by yourself being deaf, although a handicap.
Blind, you're pretty much dependent on others.

[Iota]

I'll go for deaf..................reason you can still use your sense of feeling to appreciate sound ( Beethoven did) don't think there is an equivalent for light

Yeah, because you're Beethoven...

I'd go for blindness because this wouldn't be some kind of genetically caused blindness. Scientists have already been able to regenerate optic nerves.

[CMB1888]

Scientists have already been able to regenerate optic nerves.

Isn't deafness easier to fix - cochlear implants etc.,? anyway I'd choose deafness - you still get rhymns and lyrics and are pretty self-sufficent - it's a bit of a no-brainer unless you're a professional musician or something I'd think.

[Tiggi]

I believe the Classical percissionist Evelyn Glennie is profoundly deaf, and has tended to play in bare feet so that she can feel the vibration.

And Stevie Wonder couldn't see very well...

[pennywill]

Wow! Both would suck!..can I just be deaf in one ear and blind in one eye? Like those insurance policies they sold at school as kids. :biggrin:

[techman]

This is an unusual conversation...... Strange lot me thinks..... Although I choose deafness also :laugh: You can still lead a normal life as deaf.

[Drealm]

Wow! Both would suck!..can I just be deaf in one ear and blind in one eye? Like those insurance policies they sold at school as kids. :biggrin:

As your idea initiative is great, I would allow the 1-eye/1-hear set. And I choose that too!

The problem with this question is that if we become blind, all our life would become much too complicated. But basically, I can say that I enjoy more the beauty of life while listening to music than while watching some painting or beautiful sight. So the choice is kind of forced toward sightedness because it's too useful for our survival and life, not because it's my favorite way to enjoy art. Still a difficult choice indeed.

So finally, I think I will go as the others, and be deaf. You probably can still re-play in your head the music your memory know. You know, when we have a song stuck in our head? It could even be a kind of challenge to try to replay an entire 20 minutes composition at the same speed and without missing 1 second. Would our memory be that good? But probably by practicing a lot, we could remember whole songs. It would be funny to look at me moving with the rhythm of the music I'm "listening" to! So I think this way we could still enjoy some songs we really loved. I remember this quote from the movie The Shawshank Redemption (a man in prison talk about the music he just listened to, using without permission the personal vinyl player of the prison boss):
(taps his heart, his head)
The music was here...and here.
That's the one thing they can't
confiscate, not ever. That's the
beauty of it. Haven't you ever felt
that way about music, Red?