Poll: Would you rather be blind or deaf?

As much as I'd be miserable without music, it'd be a hell of a lot harder to get around in life without vision..

Yeah, I agree. I think it would be much easier for me to learn sign language than braille, also. And TV...I like TV and movies...I always use the closed captioning anyway...it's good to know that if I'm deaf there's that already set. There's no way to "see" the shows/movies when there's no sight though. At best you can hear what's going on and use your imagination.

I used to think I couldn't live without hearing music. But...now I think I could. It figures less prominantly in my life than it used to. And I have so much stored in my head by now that I could be my own jukebox to an extent, and live with the music in my head. Also, as I found for myself when attending a Peter Mulvey show with a severe ear infection in one ear and half of one in the other, it's still a great experience even when much you're just watching and feeling the vibrations in your chest.

Hee. Maybe part of it is justification because I now have the billionth ear infection and I fear my hearing is suffering, but my eyes are still insanely good. :)

Yeah, I'm with you.

agreed. i am a visual animal, living for books and graphic arts. i could live without sound far better -- in fact, much of my day is relatively silent. i'd miss music, but it does not dominate my life the way visual stimuli do.

i'm fighting high intra-ocular pressure that could lead to glaucoma if it's not reduced, and my meds have just been switched because the old ones stopped working, so this is not an idle question for me. sigh.

obviously, my real answer is Pete Bestneither, but then, that's everyone's answer. :)

I picked blind because I'm incredibly auditory as far as my communication style goes. and I enjoy music SO much that I just can't bear the thought of living without it. I could still play the guitar, I could still go to concerts, I could still enjoy listening to my ipod, and I could still enjoy having conversations with people in person, too.

I'd rather be blind, it would be more difficult to function but if I were deaf I'd feel to isolated. I want to be able to hear people and of course music.

Perhaps the creation of the internet has changed the equation somewhat for even if I were deaf I could talk to all of you lovely poeple.

How many of you have discussed this with someone before the poll? I have many times and I was not the one who usually brings it up.

Yeah, I think I have had this conversation on at least 4 separate occasions with different groups of people in the last couple of years.

i think of it�a lot, but i dont think i've ever talked about it.

i went with deaf. blindness would make me have a career change, as it would take me forever to learn to use a braille monitor for code :D while i'm passionate about my music, i just enjoy visuals too much.

Yeah, I can't even count how many times I've had this discussion. :)

wasn't i talking about it with you when i was in the states? :)

as i probably said before, i'd definitely rather be blind. music keeps me sane.

Yes you did. What do you think inspired me?

If I were to go either blind or deaf right now, there'd be a period of... adjustment.

If I were to go deaf, I could probably sell off my CDs... and my stereo... and my iPod... and free up a huge amount of space on every hard drive I own.

If I were to go blind, I'd be able to ditch my TV, my comic book collection, and my concert-poster collection.

So, from a "simplify!" perspective, I suppose going deaf would be more pragmatic.

But given the choice between "never seeing my daughter again and having to learn how to use a braille monitor to work" and "never hearing my daughter's laugh ever again or enjoying music"... I fall firmly on the side of the sounds being more important to me.

So I picked blind. Interesting. This isn't one that I've actually bothered to spend any time thinking about before, unlike everyone else here :-)

just maybe, all my other sense could become super-heightened to where it becaomes a radar sense. I don't know...

I believe I posted a poll like this called "if you had to lose one of your five senses, which one would you pick" but it hasn't been put up here. I would choose taste in that case because the others i cannot live without, and if you have smell, you're halfway there to taste anyway.

But i cannot live without music, and i hear that when you're blind, your other senses become more heightened. so there you go

The idea of never being able to paint or draw again just makes me cringe. Music and even singing I could live without, and I could still sing, I just wouldn't subject anyone to it. Also? I know I'd be great at signing. ;)

as much as I love music, the idea of always being in the dark, and not being able to get myself out of danger freaks me out.

There are way more annoying sounds than sights.

my entire life is based solely on sounds. music, engineering, etc. there are accommodations that can be made for the sightless, but the a deaf man who cannot hear or feel music may as well roll over and expire. at least, that's my take on it.

i could live without sight if i had to. not without hearing.

-= george =-

I answered "deaf" because at the moment I am dealing with an elderly father who is now blind. It has taken away his quality of life. He lives in fear of the unknown because he went from being a seeing person to this. It is really awful for him. Because of his blindness, we have had to make application for guardianship of him. I really have developed a strong sense of why he lives in such fear. He can no longer function in his day to day life. Being 87, I doubt he will ever adapt to this. Somewhat related is wondering how you all would be affected at the loss of your voice. My brother lived for two years without the ability to speak because he had his voice box removed due to throat cancer. He died at the age of 47 on May 14, 2004. He opted not to get the artificial voice box. He wrote on a dry erase board. For two years my father and brother could not communicate really other than by us telling dad what he was writing. Losing any of these abilities to communicate and experience the world would be a great hardship, but one that many are able to adapt to. It makes me really respect those who do adapt. I think they are pretty amazing people.

I'd rather be dead,really. But I voted for Blind. If I couldn't listen to Jeff Buckley or anything using Bagpipes.. I'd be the most miserable human to ever exist. I could go about with no sight.. but no hearing? guh.. eew.

Really, I'd rather be neither...

...but I had to pick deaf. Not being able to read would really suck, and even if I learned Braille it would still be way slower. Music is certainly a huge factor in my life but it would be far easier to lead a more normal life with no hearing than no seeing.

well, I think we can ALL honestly say we'd rather be neither.

;)

Since I am blind in one eye and have to take extra precautions not to lose the sight in the good eye. (right now that eye has a bit of a problem with the back pulling away from the vitreous at the bottom)

I would hate to think about losing my sight and having to rely on others for things I take for granted now like driving to work or even walking through the store. After losing my right eye completely in 1990, I was paranoid for about 3 years that I would go completely blind. I ran to the doctor around every 2-3 months for a checkup.

It's bad enough I don't see things on my right side and bump into people and objects. I know how it is to be blind when I do have a problem in the good eye and that eye either needs to be patched or closed for 24 hours.

...Mostly because my major is ASL and I can live a lifetime with the songs in my head, dude.

And if I were to be born as either deaf or blind, I'd still pick deaf because they have this awesome culture and history and... yeah! :oD

Woo Deaf (capital D) culture! :oD