Category: Writers Block
Well, somebody had to do it. I believe I've written the ultimate satire demonstrating just how hard we blind people can be on each other. Some of the source material comes from the Zone and other places. Maybe this will make you laugh and perhaps even offer up a bit of perspective, or maybe you'll just skip over it so you can read more depressive poetry. Hahahaha! OK, here goes, and it is going to be in two parts.
How to be an OK blind person ...
Before we begin, a few things. First of all, I must say that if you are reading this, you are a bad blind person! Yes, that's right! That's you! Bad, bad, bad through and through! However, with the tips I have to offer here, I can at least get you to the level of being an OK blind person. I haven't met a truly good blind person and such a being may be the stuff of myth and legend, so all I can do is help you to become OK. This means that people in the world at large might walk past you and say hi without staring at you, asking questions that are too intimate, or wishing for supernatural powers to magically transform you into a sighted person by the power of faith. This list is by no means complete. Also, it is a given that you must totally eliminate all blindisms in public or private and dress in appropriate atire which should always match and be free of stains or holes or other imperfections. If others tell you that as long as you eliminate blindisms and dress properly and otherwise you can be yourself, they are full of it. Remember, your goal is this, and it is the one and only goal that all blind people, no matter what, should strive for. First, you must prove to the world you are capable and independent. Second, you must appear just as a sighted person to be found acceptable in their midst. So, just acting and looking appropriate won't even give you a friendly nod that you'll not see anyway. Listen and learn, young grasshopper.
1. Remember, at any time of the day, you are being watched, and so you must perform. We all understand that any one blind person represents all blind people on the entire planet. Only the sighted majority are individuals because they are the sighted majority and have earned that right due to their sheer numbers and of course built-in majority privilege. Disappointing your audience is not an option. Things like privacy, a good night's sleep, free time, contentment, happiness, and relaxation are luxuries you cannot afford in your mission to prove to the world you are just like everyone else.
2. Not only are you subject to the judgments of the sighted, but you are also subject to the judgments of your fellow blind people. To be seen as dependent in any way by either group is the kiss of death, and everything you think or do must be approved by your local blind community first.
3. Within a given city, you are allowed only two modes of transportation. Your feet, and the local fixed-route bus system. Using airplanes may be an option for moving from one city to another, but that must be approved by your local blind community before you decide to buy your ticket. Use of paratransit, cabs, and getting rides from your spouse, co-workers, friends, or family will make you look dependent, even though the sighted drive around in cars all the time. Life is unfair, and you don't want to disappoint life, do you?
4. Not only should you get off your lazy ass and get a damn job, but you should purposely get adamn job you hate. When the ever-observant general public see how much you are suffering and sacrificing for the good of Society, they will be pleased. Remember that Society must always be pleased at any cost. Refer to item 1 for clarification.
5. As an approved member of the blind community and as part of its elite squad, use any opportunity to brutally criticize and browbeat any blind person that has not reached your level of independence. Remember to trot out all those anecdotes about blind people you know who did not move out of the house at exactly eighteen, who have everything done for them, and don't even know how to cook on the stove. Your listeners will assume you are overall superior to such scum, even though you have pizza delivered three times a week.
6. in a continuing effort to prove your independence to the world, it has been discovered that just being able to cook from scratch and use the stove and oven is not enough. You are now required by your local blind community not only to grow your own vegetables, but you must also be able to properly raise and slaughter your own animals for meat. This will assure you that the sighted people who formerly snubbed you and thought you were a weirdo will suddenly warm up to you enough to say hi to you as they pass by to meet much more interesting and worthy people.
7. Be normal. I mean, be really normal. If you have eccentric points of view or tastes, eliminate them. To prove how well you are assimilated into society, you must be so normal that if someone as bland as, let's say, a certified public accountant, or even a consultant for Clear Channel Communications, thinks of your name, they will fall into an instant coma brought on by sheer boredom for at least the next fourteen weeks.
8. Remember that society is always right, because it is society. Even if you think any of society's ideas and notions are bullshit, never admit that, or you will be thrown out and nobody will like you because you didn't follow the rules.
9. This is a sighted world. That means that the sighted own and rule this world. You don't and you never will, because it is not your world. Do not expect them to accomodate you at all, because they don't have to unless it is a law or they are paid or their reputations are on the line. You actually do not belong here.
10. As often as possible, grumble about the unemployed blind people who stay at home and take a monthly government check. When asked or confronted, mention laziness, unwillingness to live up to full potential, misuse of the system, or leeching of tax dollars. However, you must privately believe that your real beef is that you can't stand it that people less worthy than you are having a better time and doing what they want when you have to work at a job you hate, and you just can't stand it. Life is still unfair.
11. I need to say it again just in case you didn't get it. Life is unfair and must continue to be unfair because it is tradition. If life were fair, then it wouldn't be life and nobody would know how to act anyhow, and it would make God mad.
12. I must emphasize that you are being watched and judged during all waking hours. One way to prove to the world how truly independent you are and how much you are just another person is this. Never accept a ride from anyone in a car or call a cab. Even if the weather is such that no sane person should go out in it, you must wait out in such weather so you can be seen as independent until your bus comes. Refuse all offers from sighted people driving in their nice, warm, dry cars because if you are seen daring to ride with one of them, nobody will like you and think you're just a weirdo freak.
13. Keep busy. If there is free time before or after work, keep as many commitments and obligations as you can. This will keep you from having to think about how much pain you're in, how much sleep you've lost, or how wet and cold and miserable you are waiting for that bus while everyone else is in their ... well, let's not think about that, shall we? Don't forget, we're trying to ge sighted people to think you're normal and say hi to you in passing. You don't want people to think you're a weirdo, do you?
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14. Be polite and patient, always. Remember, only the sighted majority have the right to have a bad day and express a bad mood because of it. When you have a bad day, hold all anger in and hide it well. If one harsh comment or angry word or expression slips, you have just ruined any advances we have made in the last hundred years and you will have set us all back, due to you're reinforcing the stereotype of the angry blind person. You must reinforce the stereotype of the ever-patient and ever-polite blind person.
15. It is a fact. All unemployed blind people are lazy and that's all. If you are discouraged to work because of past discrimination in the field you chose to go into, or if you are just tired of working or looking for work, or if you just haven't decided what you want to be paid to do because nothing would make you happy, these are all lame stupid excuses. Discrimination against the blind, the disabled, or anyone who isn't a white male has never existed, and it is obvious that anyone who thinks discrimination exists has brought it on their heads and on the heads of all people, living or dead. You are a fat, lazy, tax-money-stealing welfare bum and you do not deserve any of the money you get, ever. You should be ashamed of yourself and you have set us all back two hundred years because of your fat, stupid, degenerate self. If you want the blind to advance to be merely tollerated, each and every blind person who is taking the government check should just get up and go get a job. Refer to item 4 for clarification.
16. If people act weird around you, fear offending you, ask you about your service dog but don't want to know about you, and so forth, it is entirely and completely your own damn fault. Obviously you just don't look sighted enough. I don't care if you are totally blind and could not learn facial expressions and body language and other non-verbal communications naturally through immitation. Learn them anyway and be natural at it or you will have set us all back three hundred years. I must emphasize that if you dare to even sneeze in the wrong direction or the wrong way, it affects all blind people in the world, no matter if they live in the most remote village in the most remote continent. Individuality is a luxury none of us can afford if we are to be grudgingly put up with by the rest of the world.
17. Be conservative. Not necessarily politically, although if political conservatives are the majority, it helps. What I mean is, keep all your tastes and interests within the realms of the mainstream. If you like music, try to enjoy standard top 40 pop or soft rock or country music. Oh, if you are older, oldies are fine, as long as they are not too obscure. Don't be too weird or geeky or else you'll never have any friends.
18. If you feel awkward around large groups of people, or just people in general, it is as clear as the nose on your face that you are some degenerate loser who lacks social skills and are just a loser and an embarrassment. If you are blind you cannot afford the luxury of being an introvert, because you are not an individual. Being introverted is for loser freak Commie junkie sex offender creepy loner psycho killer weirdos anyhow, and you don't want to be one of those, do you?
19. I must emphasize that you are to get up off your lazy stupid ass, get off the internet, get off the chat lines and get a goddamn job! We don't care what it is, we don't care if you hate it, we don't care if you are unhappy doing it! Get a goddamn job and get it now! Remember that if you are sitting on the government check, all of your waking hours should be spent trying to get a job in order to get off the check. You must continue trying until you reach retirement age, without giving up. If you are rejected for being blind, it is obvious that it's all your fault because discrimination does not exist. People just hate you for not appearing sighted enough, so get those skills up and keep thinking positively no matter what.
20. And finally, stop playing the victim. If you are treated strangely, prayed for, yelled at because people think you're deaf, rejected by potential employers or lovers, or any of the myriad bad things that can happen to you, you are getting absolutely what you deserve and it must be because you just aren't capable enough or just aren't blending in enough in order to deserve respectful treatment. It's all your fault and it's all up to you. As the blind community, we are obligated to yell at you, berate and belittle you, and otherwise knock you out of your comfort zone. Comfort zones are always bad, so we have no use for them. If you want sympathy and support, do not look to us because it is impossible for us to do such things.
Now that you are armed and fortified with these twenty pointers, it's time to get out there into that big wide cold cruel world and survive like you've never survived before! Go get 'em, tiger!