Methodical

Its a lot of work learning you orientation and mobility in a new place. I call it building context. I’ve moved to many a new city and with my career have travelled to many many more. My models and approach work. They are very powerful and can be applied to many diverse situations.
Walking down the street is a deliberate act for me. Number of blocks distance in from the street, how I engage the street corner, how I cross the street. Its all deliberate. The problem is that some of the variables, important ones like the color of the light, are well variables. I don’t know what the primary indicator is. So to do something I not only have to be aware of the primary indicators but the secondary ones as well.
I think this is why some people think I read minds. There is a lot that a person tells you in the way and the words they use to say something. Or the energy they give off while they’re saying it. There are alternate clues to body language. Thank goodness as body language is so used by sighted people to communicate. Thankfully those sighted people give off energy, feelings, smells, etc. that are generally more truthful than the visual body language. I think these alternate signals are more truthful as most people are so wrapped up and distracted by what they see they ignore the rest to the point they are no longer aware of it.
At home when I cook I can’t see the knob to turn the stove on and off. I do things by time and temperature feel and taste. When I BBQ I can’t see the color of things while they’re cooking to see if their done or not. Obviously if its burning you get some clear indicators. But its all about time and temperature and knowing your BBQ and food item to know how its going to act and determine through trial and error what works and we’ll what doesn’t. I don’t think I can BBQ as well as my friend William but once I know my BBQ and what I’m BBQ’ing I can give him a run for his money. (Yes I’m a bit jealous)
There is truth to the phrase, “you have to slow down to go faster”. There are many accommodations I have been resistant to in my life. I’m cursed that I as a person am fast enough to fling a lot of shit at something to figure out how it works and make it work. My approach is typically figure out how the thing functions then I know how to interact with it. I am very good at deconstructing complex systems and telling you where things are working or not. The problem is this takes time. I take the time to talk to people about something, sometimes I’ll find the manual on the internet and read it as much as I’m willing to. A lot of time its trial and error, sleep on it, then try again with new assumptions. The old Denning model of Plan Do Measure Change, continuous improvement. Life is very structured and very unforgiving on this point. You have to take the amount of time it takes. Oh my god sounds a lot like patience. Yes I am very impatient but I’ve mellowed.
Many many a time I will have something and not know that it can also do this other cool thing until someone tells me. I need people. People to tell me that there is toilet paper hanging off of my shoe, my collar is not right, or my tie has issues. Or its time to get a hair cut. I generally like to be with blunt people. Otherwise how the heck am I going to know. I can tell if I smell bad and need a shower. Or if you do as well.
I check things out. If I’m going to a new place I’ll check on the internet or talk to people about it to contextualize my experience. It really helps. The worst times I have are when I don’t take the time to build some context for an experience. Some people really misinterpret this whole approach of managing my disability and accommodating myself through the management of my logistics. They perceive me as a control freak. Hardly. If I didn’t have a model to do something then I wouldn’t be able to do it. Being methodical, calculated, disciplined, developing and memorizing patterns, is the only way I function and function as well as I do.
People generally don’t appreciate that when I don’t have a functional model providing context for an experience I function like I am totally blind. I’ll remain totally blind until I can build a model to manage the experience. I generally don’t make sense to people as it will be the oddest strangest most common thing that will blow all of my models and assumptions out of the water. It really is a compliment when people don’t think I’m blind but I have to ask what kind of crazy person would willingly identify themselves in a minority or apart from the group?
Managing my logistics introduces some work and overhead but once I have a working model. I’m very fast and can accommodate myself very well. To the point where I really don’t look blind. That’s no longer my goal to not appear blind or to try and accommodate myself so well as to fool the sighted people into thinking I’m sighted. Its too much work. I just want to enjoy the experience and as many of them as possible.