Notes on Blindness

by Hull, John;

  The acoustic world is one in which things pass in and out of existence. This happens with such surprising rapidity. There seems to be no intermediate zone of approach. There is a sudden cry from the lake, ‘Hello, Daddy!’; my children are there in their paddle boat. Previously, a moment ago, they were not there. Not until they greeted me with a cry could I distinguish them from the rest of the background sounds. There was no gradual approach. While the world which greets me in this way is active, I am passive. I cannot stop these stimulations flooding me. I just sit here. The creatures emitting the noise have to engage in some activity. They have to scrape, bang, hit, club, strike surface upon surface, impact, make their vocal chords vibrate. They must take the initiative in announcing their presence to me. For my part, I have no power to explore them. I cannot penetrate them or discover them without their active co-operation. They must utter their voice, their sound. It is thus a world which comes to me, which springs into life for me, which has no existence apart from its life towards me.

  The intermittent nature of the acoustic world is one of its most striking features. In contrast, the perceived world is stable and continuous. The seen world cannot escape from your eyes. Even in the darkness, you can use a torch and force things into visibility, but I have only very limited power over the acoustic world.

  Here is another feature of the acoustic world: it stays the same whichever way I turn my head. This is not true of the perceptible world. It changes as I turn my head. New things come into view. The view looking that way is quite different from the view looking this way. It is not like that with sound. New noises do not come to my attention as I turn my head around. I may allow my head to hang limply down upon my chest; I may lean right back and face the sky. It makes little difference. Perhaps there is some slight shading of quality, but the acoustic world is mainly independent of my movement. This heightens the sense of passivity. Instead of me having to search things out and uncover fresh portions of my world by my own effort as I fix my gaze first here then there, in the acoustic world there is something which is rather indifferent to my attempts to penetrate it. This is a world which I cannot shut out, which goes on all around me, and which gets on with its own life. I can, of course, train myself to pay attention to it; I can learn to distinguish this from that sound, become more practised in judging distance and so on. Nevertheless, my ears remain fixed in a stationary head, while my eyes, if I could see, would be darting here and there with innumerable movements in a head which itself was moving.

  Acoustic space is a world of revelation.

  1 May

  Last night I dreamt that I was in a pub. Marilyn and I were making love. The scene changed to the crowded bar. An announcement was heard over the public address system: ‘Will the blind man at the bar please report immediately because his wife and daughter have been involved in an accident.’ The notice was repeated. In the dream I now had an image of myself, holding the white cane, hearing the notice, stupefied with anxiety. A second time the notice was twice repeated. Then I was at the back door of the pub. At the end of the drive there was a car. Marilyn and Imogen were in it. I couldn’t get to them fast enough. A scream broke from my lips. ‘Meg! Immy!’ Then, whether with assistance or not I cannot tell, I was at the car. Everything was all right. It had been a false alarm. Imogen was fine. Marilyn was fine. I told them about the announcement in the bar, but everything was okay.

  In this dream I hear myself described as a blind man, I see myself holding a stick, I once again sense the panic of not being able to get quickly enough to loved ones in distress. In the dream, however, it is not clear whether I am led or conducted. I seem to be able to get there by myself.

  The main subject of the dream is fear of losing Marilyn through blindness. This seems to be corrected by the later realisation that, after all, this will not happen. So my dream says.

  This is a dream about blindness as well as a blind person’s dream.

  8 May

  Last Thursday one of my friends was driving me home from a meeting. I asked her if she would mind if I collected a meal from an Indian takeaway. We parked on the double yellow lines outside one of the restaurants in Bristol Street. My friend helped me as far as the door of the restaurant where we were met by an affable man who seemed to be a person of authority in the place. My friend returned to her parked car and I was escorted to a table. My escort introduced himself to me as an entertainer who worked every evening in the restaurant. His name was, he said, Benito Luigi, not an Indian, but a Sicilian. He explained that, although in his capacity as an entertainer, a magician and a conjuror, he worked in the restaurant, his essential work was as a hypnotherapist.

  He asked me if my companion would like to come inside and have a cup of coffee, and offered me coffee too. He would keep an eye out for the police, and would explain the situation should the need arise. He called my friend from her car and we were both served with coffee. He entertained her by describing his business and his specialities.

  Turning to me he asked if I would mind answering some personal questions. I knew now what was coming, and was ready for it. He asked if I was completely blind, how long I had been blind, the cause of my blindness and whether I was completely satisfied that nothing more could be done. He told me candidly that there was only one thing I could now have hope in, and that was my own willpower. My sight depended upon my will, and he, through hypnotherapy, could restore and strengthen my will.

  I asked Luigi whether he could restore a limb which had been lost during a road accident. He said ‘No’. I pointed out that my eyes were a bit like that. This seemed to give him pause for thought.

  He hesitated. ‘You got no eyes? They gone?’ I took my glasses off and showed him my left eye, which is completely white. I told him that that was not really a normal eye. Significant components had been removed or destroyed. I told him that the lenses from my eyes were gone and that the retina in both eyes had long since perished. Willpower could not restore these physical structures any more than willpower could make a new arm grow.

  Nothing daunted, Luigi told me about some of the marvellous cures he had performed, including terminal cancer. ‘You’re not a hypnotherapist. You’re a faith healer!’ I told him. He appealed to my companion for her opinion of the case. She was inclined to agree with me. This did not seem like a case of weakened will but a case of structural defect. Perhaps seeing that our food was about to be brought to the table, Luigi made one final attempt. ‘But all you need is willpower! Don’t you have willpower? Don’t you want your sight back?’

  ‘Of course I want my sight back’, I said, laughing at the joke. ‘But, on the other hand, don’t misunderstand me. I am a contented person’.

  He replied, ‘I see that you are contented. Yes, I see that you laugh a lot, you are a happy man. Nevertheless, you must want your sight back.’

  I agreed, and at that moment our food arrived. Luigi gave me his business card, and we bid each other friendly farewells.

  On the way home in the car, my friend and I discussed this amusing incident. She was delighted by this new acquaintance, and amused by his vivacity and his charm. She was rather intrigued at the thought of being hypnotised by him, and wondered what it would be like. When we stopped outside the house, she asked in a hesitant but curious tone, ‘But, John, what about yourself? Why did you not accept? What harm could it do? Do you think you have got to the point where you really don’t want your sight back?’

  I was taken aback at this, and replied, ‘How can you say that? Of course I want my sight back! I will never accept the loss of my sight!’

  ‘But, John’, she asked, ‘you do seem so well adjusted to it. You always seem to be so poised, so happy, you seem to function so well.’

  ‘You don’t know half the truth’, I said warmly. ‘I will never accept the human losses involved in blindness, and I will never accept futile help from that sort of quarter either. Don’t you see that I would find it even more degrading, more humiliating, that it would onl
y be to betray any courage and dignity which I may have left? There are some situations in life when you have to carry out a protracted but dignified warfare against despair and not allow yourself to be made the emotional slave of those who offer false hopes.’

  This line of argument had little impact. My loyal and affectionate friend was still inclined to think that it must be a combination of pride and complacency which held me back from accepting such a harmless offer. For my part, to persist with the military metaphor, if blindness is going to vanquish me, I would rather be found dead with the wounds on my chest and not in my back.

  9 May

  At church last Sunday, we again met our faith-healing friend, Mr Cresswell. Perhaps my attitude had hardened somewhat in the meantime, partly because of the encounter with the hypnotherapist in the Indian restaurant and partly because Marilyn had made me have a couple of spoonfuls of cod liver oil mixed with honey, and had been mildly disapproving when I refused any more.

  Mr Cresswell came up in a breezy manner, shook me by the hand, and asked me how things were. It was apparent that he was not very interested in how things were, since I suppose the white cane I was holding told its own story, but he apologised for not having visited us again, and then announced that he had a word from the Lord for me. The message was that the Lord was instructing me to get hold of a small Bible and carry it always in my pocket. From now on, I must always have the word of God with me, it must go with me, this is what God had said, ‘Let the word go with you’.

  ‘I’m sorry Mr Cresswell’, I said, ‘but I am not prepared to do that. I have a lot of things to put in my pockets and I am not prepared to clutter them up with one more thing. I carry the word of God always in my head and in my heart, and I see no point in carrying it in my pocket as well.’

  Mr Cresswell waxed rather eloquent at this, and told me roundly that God was telling me the simple thing that I should now do in order to have my sight back and if I were not prepared to obey him then I should not be surprised if my sight were not restored. Sin was the cause of blindness, as of all illness, and sin lay in the resistance and pride of humankind in refusing to obey the word of God, and to do the simple things God said.

  ‘Mr Cresswell’, I said, ‘I see that we have very different ideas about God, and about sin and about sight. I do not accept any of your ideas about these things. Whether we live or die, we are always the Lord’s and I am not prepared to be put under emotional pressure to do all these strange things week by week. You are advising me to accept magical, superstitious practices.’

  ‘No, no’, he expostulated, ‘these are the words of the Lord!’

  He pursued me down the aisle, as Marilyn and I began to make our way to the door, warning me that I was treading a very dangerous path, and that I would not find healing that way.

  As we got into the car, I felt slightly regretful that I had, perhaps, alienated a kindly and well-meaning man through speaking the truth too directly, but on the other hand, as I remarked to Marilyn, I cannot allow myself to be blackmailed into doing all sorts of nonsensical things through weakly capitulating to futile hopes.

  11 May

  I was walking home after an evening class. It was a little after eight o’clock. There was not much movement around the campus. I heard running feet approaching, stopping perhaps twenty yards away. A fierce, harsh, male voice, distorted with anger and malice, shouted, ‘Are you blind, mate? You’re not blind! How did you get blind? You’re not blind!’

  I was so surprised, both by the abruptness and the manner of this address, that I stood perfectly still. I waited for a moment, in silence, wondering whether to reply. Again my accuser spat out his question, ‘Are you blind?’

  Quietly, but hoping that my voice sounded firm and clear, I replied, ‘Yes, I am blind.’

  I sensed that he was coming closer to me. He swore at me. ‘You dirty fucking bastard! You’re not blind! How did you get blind? You’re not blind!’

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘you are wrong. I am blind.’

  I tried to resist the impulse to lift up my briefcase and hold it in front of me, for I had the impression that he was about to attack me, to punch me, to see whether I was blind or not. Perhaps he would see whether or not I would try to duck. I resisted the temptation, however, and stayed quite still, looking in his direction, since I thought that any sign of nervousness might have encouraged him to attack me. He seemed to move off to the left a little, and when he spoke again it was from further away. Again he shouted in the same tone of malicious anger and hatred, ‘You’re not blind! How did you get blind?’ From even further away, he sent after me one final ‘You’re not blind!’ and then he seemed to disappear.

  I was, rather naturally, a little hesitant about proceeding on my route. What if he had come back and was standing only a few feet in front of me? I waited a few more moments to see if he would shout out again. I then realised that there was a car parked on the far side of the road along which I was walking. I got the impression that the driver had got out of his car during this incident, but was not getting back in. I heard him mutter to the person he was with, ‘Silly bugger! What’s he want to talk like that to him for?’

  I took it that he was referring to my assailant, rather than to me, and was encouraged to call out, ‘Is he gone?’

  The driver asked me which way I was going. I misunderstood him, thinking that he was about to offer me a lift. ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘I can manage, thank you very much. I was just a bit startled, that’s all.’

  ‘No, which way are you going?’ he asked again.

  ‘I’m going straight ahead, down to the Bristol Road.’

  ‘Oh, you’re all right. He’s gone off in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Who was he?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What was he like? Was he drunk or something?’

  ‘Don’t know, couldn’t tell.’

  I thanked the driver for his help and went on my way.

  Two or three years ago, when I still had a little residual vision, I was walking through the Selly Oak shops one night when, crossing a side street, a chap a few paces behind me shouted, ‘Look out, mate! There’s a car! Stop!’ I stopped rather sharply, startled because I had not heard anything coming. I took a step back towards the pavement from which I had come. A second voice spoke. ‘It’s all right, mate, he’s only kidding. You’re all right to cross.’ I did not look around or make any gesture of acknowledgement or thanks, but resumed my path across the road with what I hoped was a distant dignity. These were simply young fellows having a bit of fun. The man on the campus was rather more strange. A blind friend who makes a living by busking in shopping centres told me that he is often attacked by youths who accuse him of being a fraud. I have never had this particular experience before.

  17 June

  What gives me this feeling of tension after several days away from work or from my office? It builds up into quite a strong sense of discomfort, anxiety and then depression. This becomes so disquieting that it is almost painful.

  To some extent, I think it is the frustration caused by the presence of the children. In that situation, I become most keenly aware of blindness. Perhaps another factor is that any blind person is, to some extent, starved of information. I run short of facts. My brain demands something new to know.

  I can be plunged quite suddenly into such feelings of deprivation through some little incident or other. As we were crossing the road from the car park to the entrance of the airport the other day, I called out, ‘Is anybody holding Lizzie’s hand?’ In the rush to get over the road, the family simply ignored my question. This was perfectly sensible of them, since this was the moment to get safely to the footpath, not to start discussing who was holding whom. Nevertheless, I suddenly felt out of things, that my ability to watch over Lizzie had been destroyed, that there was no point in trying to care for her or bothering. What was the point, I found myself wondering, in asking who is with her, what she is doi
ng, and if she is safe? I was a mere lump of fat being carted around.

  On the other hand, a few days ago I attended a conference in London where I found many people I knew. All day long I was meeting old friends, being introduced to new colleagues, catching up on bits of news about various events and finding out new developments in my work. I hardly had time to realise that I was blind, and the day passed by quickly.

  What affects me is the cumulative experience of the inescapable presence of blindness. Perhaps it is also the lack of control, and this may well be why I find it so exhausting. It is in intellectual work that I find refreshment, partly because I can almost entirely forget that I am blind. The social demands of public life and the personal demands of family life seem to create so many situations in which I become not only aware but painfully aware of blindness. On the whole, however, such experiences are not as common nor as severe as they were six months ago.

  5

  The wind and the sea

  Summer 1984

  19 June

  If the blind live in time, the deaf live in space. The deaf measure time by seeing movement. If, however, the deaf gaze out upon a world in which there is no movement, such as the stars, a deserted street, or some mountain scenery, then there is a quality of permanence, of static consistency. In losing this kind of awareness of space, blind people have less awareness of unchangeability. The world of the blind is more ephemeral, since sounds come and go.

  Consider the importance of body-time to the blind. A deaf person walking home has no problems in timing the point at which he leaves the public footpath and enters his own house. His body is placed within a number of pictures of his environment which are fairly consistent from day to day. When a picture of a certain kind, the shape of his house, or the colour of his front gate appears before him, he knows which way to go. With the blind, this sense of being in a place is less pronounced.