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Writer's pictureElaine Grohman

We Are Not Blind

We are not blind. Yet we often pretend to be. We are not deaf. Yet we often pretend to be. We are not mute. Yet we often do not speak. We feel. Yet we often pretend we do not. We have unwittingly become blind, deaf, mute and unfeeling. This happens when we believe that our culture is primary, that our heritage is our only way of being and that inequality is just the way it is. In order to change our world for the better we must be truthful. We are not blind.


Blindness is not merely the loss of sight - it is also the choice not to see. When we choose to be blind we miss the Beauty that Life offers us all. Deafness is not merely the inability to hear – it is also the unwillingness to listen. When we refuse to listen we halt any movement toward understanding, compassion and insight. And problems persist. To be mute does not merely mean the inability to speak – it is also the choice to refuse forgiveness, but is also the denial that we can make a difference. The great loss is when truth is not shared due to false beliefs that what we say may fall on deaf ears, and so our words stay silently within. And problems persist.


There is a Netflix series entitled, “13 Reasons Why,” the narrative story of a young high school girl named Hannah Baker who ultimately commits suicide, and the interconnection of each relationship and how those relationships contribute, in her perspective, to her “13 Reasons Why,” she takes her own Life. Central to the story are a series of audio tapes, spoken by Hannah, as she shares her perceptions and responses to others – family, friends, foes and authority figures, whom she perceives to have contributed to her “reasons” to end her own Life. Yet, what Hannah fails to see, is that each of the other Lives have their own hidden truths and misguided paths – and the tragedies continue silently moving towards uncertain futures.


Hannah’s view on Life has tumbled out of control through blindness, silenced words, dulled and denied feelings – any of which could have altered her assessment of Her Self, and could potentially have saved a Life. Her Life, her friends Lives, and the Lives of all around her. And despite the reviews and both the objections and the praise for this series, there is one undeniable Truth that brings squarely to the viewer how blind we all have become.


There is another way. There have always been other ways.


We ought to consider rewinding the tapes that play within our own Minds, within our own Hearts and within our Society. We are Seeing, Feeling, Hearing and Responding Beings. That is the way Creation designed the Human Being. Yet we have been trained, and entrained to dull our Senses, which no longer serves to make any sense.


We are capable of challenging our misguided beliefs that “this is the way it is,” or “I can’t do anything to make a difference.” You can. I can. We must.


Our sense of feeling, the visceral “knowing” that goes beyond touch, has been dulled when we favor our thinking over our “gut-feelings.” When we see poverty, abuse, pollution, we can “feel” the depth of the wrongness of it all. And we can no longer afford to pretend that we do not know it is wrong. All of our Senses are screaming for us all to Come to Our Senses, and make sense-filled choices for the betterment of us all.


We feel Unity, just as surely as we feel discord. We feel Love, just as surely as we feel fear. We feel Life, just as surely as we feel decline. We feel Respect, just as surely as we feel disrespect. We feel Honesty, just as surely as we feel dishonesty. We feel Justice, just as surely as we feel inequality. We feel Kindness, just as surely as we feel resentment.


Let’s learn how to employ the greatness of our Human Being-ness. We are all capable of Seeing, Feeling, Hearing and Knowing. Any denial of these wonderful gifts will keep us in the challenges we face. There is another way. Let’s begin making Sense as we learn to recognize and respond to the Sacredness of all Lives. Each and every Life is worth it.

 

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