what's missing

alright, this is something that came up recently.

i was waiting on this gentleman and i noticed that his left hand was a stub. yes, he didn't have any fingers and he was probably born that way. when i brought him the check he casually would slide his left hand under his right hand, probably because he was shame.

now a lot of us take it for granted that we have 10 fingers and 10 toes. i know that we don't really notice things, or body parts, until they are missing. now imagine if you were or are missing something that might seem vital for another person.

thoughts on this matter... serious or not. it doesn't matter.

raverboy

it is a serious matter. we take most things for granted. we take for granted that we might not wake up tomorrow morning.

i work with people who have disabilities of all kinds. i work with a man who got polio when he was younger and now he's paraplegic(sp) and his legs are atrophed. it makes me grateful all the time that i have all my limbs and complete ability.

usually i think that people are "grateful" only when they take other people into consideration. we go about our daily lives so casually that we don't really take notice of the small things that we do take for granted.

i have thought about this subject before, but usually it's after noticing another person's disability. tsk tsk tsk.

raverboy

A little presumption and myopia seems to be going on here. A person having what we might call "a disability" may not see it that way at all. Especially if they never had what we think they're missing.

I'm happy for the things that I do take for granted.

Everything that exists or has substance as far as conscious recognition goes is adjacent to the fact that we acknowledge the presence of an object. For example, we acknoeldge that he's missing fingers, therefore he believes so. Pretty much what I'm trying to say, however incoherant my example appears to be, is that it's a matter of perception, as if we considered missing fingers were the norm, he wouldn't have that sort of feeling.

/Hmm garbage lol -_-;;

I try not to take anything for granted, sight, touch, taste, feelings.. anything, and somehow, I'm pretty sure that I'm taking some things for granted..

There's a book I'm sort of reading and it recommends crazy things to do each day. Five of them are not using each of the senses on individual days. Then, you write what you missed most about the senses.

Works for me.

I'd rather take things for granted.

Makes life easier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whaywardj

A little presumption and myopia seems to be going on here. A person having what we might call "a disability" may not see it that way at all. Especially if they never had what we think they're missing.

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i wonder to what extent our environment ables or disables people...

"...i wonder to what extent our environment ables or disables people..."

I had a similar thought some years ago around cancer. Like: Cancer isn't a disease, but the body's way of trying to cope with an environment that's changing too fast for it to keep up with. As if it's saying, "Too many PCPs! Gotta create an organ that can process them out of the body. Oops! That didn't work. Let's try again." We call the failed attempts "cancer." There's a sci-fi or medical horror story in there somewhere.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whaywardj

A little presumption and myopia seems to be going on here. A person having what we might call "a disability" may not see it that way at all. Especially if they never had what we think they're missing.

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true, they may never had felt that their disability was a disability because maybe they wasn't born with with all the limbs or whatevers as normal people. however when you think about it, if we had two extra arms, we could get so much more done. what i'm getting is that if a person with a disability knows that they would be better off with that missing arm or leg, i would think they would feel like something is missing in their lives.

raverboy

i think a lot of people focus way too much on what a person is not able to do than what they are able to do. i've noticed that the people i work with know how to do a lot by themselves, but they're older and other people have already done everything for them and not taught them as though they're not capable of learning and they get spoiled and believe that they can't do things. helplessness is learned.

that is also very true. too many people focus on themselves including me. we do take notice of what isn't getting done, while all the praise that should be given is forgotten.

raverboy