By June 15, 2013 Read More →

What Can You See?

I get this question all the time. I appreciate the question as it demonstrates a person’s interest in understanding me and my vision but it is profoundly difficult to answer. Visual acuity or our perception of color is impacted by our mood our distractions and our experiences. Vision ultimately is a very individual and somewhat variable experience.

What Can You See? Podcast
My vision corrected is 20/200 which is the legal definition of blindness. The most effective way I’ve found of explaining what 20/200 vision means is. What a person with 20/20 vision sees at 200 feet I’d need to be at 20 feet to see the same thing.
It is very difficult for me to answer the question what can I see as there really isn’t a common point of reference. I have been legally blind my whole life. So what I see is normal to me and people with more sight than I have are the different ones. My experience with blindness is ultimately different as I’m not totally blind and I haven’t lost my vision during my life. My experience with sight really is my own.
Another approach I take to create a bridge of understanding is answer the question “What can I see?” with a question “What can you see?” This demonstrates very quickly the difficulty in explaining to someone else your visual experience. If you can explain what you can see let me know.
My goal is to create the bridge to eliminate the vision issue from my personal and professional interactions. As soon as I can get to the level playing field and past my vision differences the sooner I can get on with my personal relationships or getting the job done.

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