Pagan morality

[iambiguous]

I would speculate, however, that any number of sighted people, in attempting to imagine themselves as having been blind from birth, would quickly be in way over their heads. Though, perhaps, less in over their heads than those who could see and then later in life had to suddenly deal with not being able to?

Imagine someone who was born blind befriending someone who was born deaf. He can't see her, she can't hear him. But both embody the same reality. In other words, the reality of having been born blind and deaf. And, thus, right from the start those around you are likely to prepare you for living in the world as a blind or a deaf person. You will have acquired any number of crucial skills to facilitate your interactions with others.

There's just something about "going blind" that seems more bewildering and frightening to me.

Sometimes I'll go back and forth, imagining myself being blind since birth or going blind in the future. I have more or less convinced myself "here and now" that I would prefer to have been born blind. On the other hand, the thought of going to grave never having been able to see anything...?

And, likewise, I've spent my whole life trying to imagine what it's like to see. I can't really do it, though.

Back, perhaps, to that sci-fi machine? The one from an earlier exchange where you get in one pod, I get in another pod, and we are actually able to be inside each other, experiencing what the other is thinking and feeling.

Of course, thinking and feeling like you do "in the moment" is not necessarily the same as understanding it as you do in the moment.

Here's an interesting misconception, by the way, since you talk about misconceptions further down, namely, that blind people see black all the time. This isn't true. I don't have any field of vision at all, and therefore don't see black. But that's only the case, of course, for people who have never had any sight. Those who lose their sight are prone to all sorts of visual hallucinations, apparently, though these tend to fade with time.

If I could be inside you right now, however, you might note the gap between what you think you are telling me about not seeing black all the time or experiencing a field of vision. In other words, the gap between what may be a day-to-day reality to you but not something I can ever really wrap my own head around. Some things will never be grasped.

Here's AI's take on it:

"No, totally blind people do not see black:
Vision varies: Most blind people have some level of vision, and what they can see differs from person to person.
Light and dark: Most blind people can differentiate between light and dark.
Visual experience: For people who are totally blind, their visual experience is the absence of visual stimuli.
Color: Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before.
Alternative ways to see: Blind people can also see through touch, sound, and Braille.

It's this part in particular...

"Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before."

...I'm just not able "here and now" to grasp what it is then that those blind from birth are "seeing". Or rather not seeing? What is the experience "of seeing nothing" like? Is there a similar rendition of that for those deaf from birth? It's not silence they hear but nothing at all?

Well, like some say, if you are doing something you really enjoy, something that truly fulfills you, why call it work at all?

Still, I hope someday you do take a stab at articulating yourself [as well as you do here] other places.

Just out of curiosity, what subjects do your parents teach?

My dad's main subject is History, and my mom's is English, lit. and lang. Some of that has clearly rubbed off on me.

Do they ever follow your posts here? I'm trying to imagine two agnostics engaging in continuing discussions about Paganism. Does Paganism even count as a religion to some who call themselves Pagans? When does communing with Nature and sustaining a spiritual frame of mind become a religion? For some, never?

My own family and I were estranged. In fact, I don't even know if my mother, my brother and my three sisters are still alive. And all of my friends are now virtual. Still, there are few things in my life that I would change. I'm just not really sure what to actually make of that though.

I'm very sorry to hear that about your family. I can't imagine ever being in that situation.

Thank you. In a sense though my situation back then was somewhat akin to "being born into it". In other words, aside from one sister I fell in love with, I don't ever remember being close to either my parents or my other siblings. So, it's not like I had this great family that over time devolved into "every man, woman and child for themselves." It always seemed that way to me. Then the part where in becoming my own best friend I was never at a loss for interesting things to do. I have never really been bored...ever. Or not that I can recall.

Well, there either is an important connection between what we do on this of the grave and the consequences for "I" on the other side, or there's not. And, if there is, some are on the right path and some are not. But what I always come back to is this: why the path that any particular individual is on and not another path altogether?

The stakes are so large here [for most of us] that being on a path we believe sustains "I" into eternity becomes a fundamental part on it. Yet given the hundreds and hundreds of paths that have already been embraced by mere mortals over the centuries, I suspect that what may be of most importance here is not what you believe but that you do believe it.

I know that if "somehow" I could believe it again, I would. I want to be "saved". But: what on Earth does that even mean?

I don't really know what saved means, either, and it's only relevant in a Christian context, anyway. Pagans certainly don't have any concept of original sin, that people need saving from.

The thing about being saved, a crucial component of many religious denominations, often revolves around the extent to which your day-to-day experiences are truly satisfying. If you live a life that both fulfills and fascinates you, you may not think much about the need for salvation at all. And then one day out of the blue, godot comes knocking and it's your turn. So, sure, when does a philosophical or spiritual or natural reaction to death give way to reacting to an actual death sentence.

Again, I certainly do want to believe that again myself. And yes, given the fact that we are here "here and now", and that's all we know, it can certainly seem to be common sense that there must be something more "on the other side". It's just that death -- oblivion? -- is so frightening to so many of us, it can seem like common sense that antidotes would be invented in order to "comfort and console" those able to convince themselves that one or another rendition of salvation is our fate instead.

My opinions on the existence of an afterlife are still very much at the uncertain stage. Perhaps it's more likely than not, I think, but what it might actually consist of is another matter, about which I have no idea.

Of course, each in our own way, I suppose, we are all blind to that. It's just that there will always be those able either to be convinced by others or able to convince themselves that death is then just a hop and a step, and a jump to paradise. And, of course, it's not for nothing, in my view, that the closer some get to it, the more likely they are to be persuaded to be "saved". I know I would if I could.

Yes, if a Scripture is available, you fall back on it. If there is no Scripture, however? For those who believe that there is one, there's the consolation of being able to believe it. On the other hand, everything you think, feel, say and do must then be in accord with this Scripture.

Or else?

Whereas, if there is no Scripture, this provides you with the option to be far, far more imaginative in deciding what to choose on this side.

Either way, from my own truly cynical frame of mind, the thing about religious or spiritual faith is that all that's necessary is that you do believe it. It doesn't have to be true at all. But for those who do believe that it is true, all I can ask of them is to at least attempt to demonstrate how and why they were able to convince themselves.

I don't think I could ever be part of a religion with scriptures, handed down unchanged from thousands of years ago. They were, after all, written by people, as fallible as anyone else.

I certainly agree with that. But, again, it's the enormous stakes involved -- moral commandments, immortality, salvation -- that supersede any real doubts. It's what I call the "psychology of objectivism". We believe what we do because what we do believe is then able to comfort and console us. And I certainly can't rule out at least the possibility that I will bump into an argument here that actually persuades me to, uh, hope again?

On the other hand, I would imagine that there are blind men and women who might...disagree?

"Blind people can’t be friends with someone who is fully sighted" from: "The Stereotypes Surrounding Sight Loss https://myblurredworld.com/2017/10/04/s ... ight-loss/

Clearly, blind people can befriend sighted people. But all I can imagine "here and now" is that if I were to become blind, I would need to be around others who were blind as well. Not all the time, of course, but enough time to feel more comfortable in both worlds.

But: back again to the "for all practical purposes" reality of being blind from birth and "going blind". The woman above [Elin Williams] has "impaired vision". She lives in Wales by the way.

I must admit I'd never heard of that particular misconception before, that blind people can't have sighted friends.

That's what the author seems to be intimating. That any number of sighted people actually do believe this and other stereotypical prejudices regarding the blind. On the other hand, if there is no "one size fits all" assessment of blindness, I would expect the parts rooted in dasein to steer us in particular directions. And no doubt even within the blind community itself there are any number of...controversies?

It's a load of old tosh, of course, but if it exists as a stereotype, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a stereotype believed primarily by blind people, or at any rate, by a certain vocal minority. All the other stereotypes she mentions are all too familiar, though.

The politics of blindness? On the other hand, how ought it be understood, philosophically or otherwise? And then what actual policies should "society" or "government" pursue? In many respects, when it comes to politics, in my view, blind people are themselves no less all up and down the political spectrum.

Every author will have an audience. And with that audience comes the chance of communicating with those who have read what you wrote and find it interesting enough to contact you.

But again, in not actually being you, in not having an intimate understanding of the life you've lived, there will always be things that I suggest to you only because I imagine suggesting them to myself.

Hopefully one day I'll actually write the thing.

Well, in that case, hopefully one day I'll read it.

And to the extent you are out in the world interacting with others [on your own memorable trips, for example], that increases the odds considerably. You will either meet this person or not. And they will either "know it" as well or not.

'm glad you like my little travelogues. I'm starting to run out of interesting trips to write about, now, sadly. I've had various other camping trips, on my own, but they'd probably come across as a bit repetitive. There is, however, one other trip that I'll probably have to include, for the sake of completion.

Or, once your commitment to the Goddess is complete, how about a...a personal ad? You can start to work on that crucial "profile". Something straight out of the film [i[Singles? Or Single White Female? On the other hand, I suspect I'm just kidding you.

On the other hand, if an individual does have little or no experience regarding blindness [or in being around blind people], he or she is that much more likely to be ignorant and prejudiced.

Like that scene from Scent of a Woman:

"Frank: Are you blind?
Charlie: Of course not.
Frank: Then why are you taking my goddamn arm? I take your arm.
Charlie: Sorry...
Frank: Don't be sorry, how would you know?"

I would imagine that any number of sighted people might be inundated with uncertainties the first time they are around someone who is blind. You are the first blind person I have ever had this much contact with [if only virtually], and I'm still grappling to figure out what I am ignorant of. On the other hand, everyone is going to be ignorant about some things.

The worst thing, to be honest, is when people are embarrassed to talk to me, or try and avoid saying certain words, such as "blind" for example, in the ridiculously mistaken belief, I assume, that it might upset me to be reminded of it. They think I don't notice, but it's painfully obvious. I usually try and diffuse the situation my cracking a little joke about it, or something like that.

Here, however, there is often a gap between intentions...good...and results...not so good. Then, depending on the actual consequences involved, we can at least acknowledge that the intentions were good.

I suspect, however, that within the blind community, there will be conflicting reactions to that. It's not so much what is owed to any citizen as [perhaps] what is provided to them in the way of education and facilities that enable all men and women to be independent.

There's a happy balance, I think. In terms of education, the state does indeed have a responsibility to provide the means for everyone to benefit from it. It certainly provided mine, and I have no complaints about that at all.

That's often how it works. There's the role of government grappled with theoretically [ideologically] by, among others, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists up in the philosophical clouds. Then there's the real world. Where different people have different political convictions precisely because their interactions with the government or "society" are just very different.

Yes, and, in part, that is because Catholics do have a Scripture. And that Scripture often revolves around this: "be one of us...or else". At the same time, however, to the extent that you do embrace the Vatican's rendition of the One True Path, it seems that much more likely that you will be comforted and consoled on both sides of the grave.

That's monotheism, for you.

And I suspect it's not just a coincidence that monotheism is deemed the One True Path by most. In part because it does come down to this crucial prospect...of living forever in Paradise?

How then do they react to Paganism? Do you have discussions about that with them? And while there are any number things we can be reasonably certain about regarding our interactions with others, there are all those "value judgments" we come into conflict with.

I've had many, and lengthy, discussions with my parents about Paganism. They always knew I liked being outside, in nature, so I don't think it was a complete surprise to them, and they've always been very supportive.

Why do you suppose that was? What were your first experiences with nature, and how did they shape your reaction to the world around you. I'm thinking what if those experiences had been grim, as no doubt many living in Florida right now are not exactly singing nature's praises. Again, from my frame of mind, it revolves mostly around those crucial personal experiences. Especially as a child where minds are shaped and molded in ways that are often very much "beyond our control".

I think what might concern me the most about being born blind is this: what if I did not have parents like yours? What if those who raised me were blind to many other things instead.

I've been extremely lucky.

Though for some that might be the scary part. They're blind and they live in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. And being unable to see at all can make anyone vulnerable to those who are fully prepared to take advantage of that. May your luck never run out then.

Though again so much of this reaction is just me imagining myself being vulnerable.

Of course, I can't imagine what that could possibly have been like. How on Earth does someone who has seen nothing at all, comprehend what they are told about seeing? There are the things they can hear or touch or taste or smell. Sometimes in an enhanced manner. But never to have seen anything at all? And never ever having the hope that someday they might see? And it's because some deem sight to be so fundamentally important to understanding "the human condition", it just seems beyond their own capacity [meaning my own capacity] to come to grips with it.

On the other hand, had your parents been devout Catholics, they might have assured you that your blindness is just another manifestation of God's "mysterious ways" and that, what, in Heaven you would...what exactly?

Then this part: https://nfb.org/sites/default/files/ima ... 50205.html

"A child who is born blind does not know what it is like to see. Until he or she is old enough to begin to understand how other people do things, blindness seems normal. Therefore, a small child will not feel bad about blindness until someone teaches him or her (directly or indirectly) to feel bad."

Does this seem reasonable to you?

Yes, I can certainly relate to at least some of what she says in that article. I don't remember a time when I was unaware that everyone else had something very important that I didn't. Perhaps I was too young to be able to remember such a time, now. And it wasn't long before I began questioning my parents about it.

Perhaps the closest I've come to understanding what being different from others regarding something important feels like is in regard to my belief that human interactions are essentially meaningless, that morality is fundamentally fractured and fragmented and that death equals oblivion. But these are beliefs that might change so they are not really the same at all as how congenitally we come into the world with "conditions" that can follow us all the way to the grave.

So, basically, when you interact now, blindness is not something that comes up very often? You are a brother and a sister able to do what most other brothers and sisters do?

Yes, I'm sure we do interact how any brother and sister do, or those who are close, anyway. I occasionally ask for his help with something, but that's about it.

I think in many cases it comes down to just knowing that they are around if you need them.

Yes, that's another important factor, I would imagine. It's one thing to be blind and then be told there is the possibility that, with new medical advances, you might see one day. But having to accept that you never will...as a child?

This is from the Quora site:

"There is a critical time of brain plasticity in babies where they learn to interpret visual input.

For instance, when they crawl towards something, it gets larger in their visual field.

People who were blind as a baby and missed this critical period of development will never be able to fully interpret visual input.

So, is there absolutely no way that medical science might come up with something that allows you to see one day? After all, it's already come up with so many other astonishing "medical miracles".

Well, I'm definitely not having any chips stuck into my brain, for anything. I'm thinking of Elon Musk's Blindsight device here, which I've heard of, but don't really know much about, except that it involves an implant into your visual cortex. More importantly, though, it doesn't actually give you anything resembling sight, but rather, a series of patterns, or something. And since, according to CT scans I've had over the years, my visual cortex is mostly given over to other things, I certainly wouldn't want to risk interfering with, say, something as crucial to my daily life as echolocation, or spatial mapping, or whatever else my visual cortex might be doing. I might think twice if such a device would actually give me real, proper sight, but it doesn't.

Understanding the human brain and then connecting those dots to how it intertwines all the rest of us into "I"...? We just do not know so many things. All I can do is to bump into others in places like this and wonder if one of them might somehow manage to nudge me in a whole different direction myself.

[promethean75]

"the gap between what may be a day-to-day reality to you but not something I can ever really wrap my own head around. Some things will never be grasped"

The other day, i was doing phenomenology, and i thought about how difficult it would be to explain what a camp fire or fire in general looks like to a blind person.

Just about everything else in our visible world of objects and things can be known through tactile sensation. Dimension, shape, mass, weight, texture... these can be known by a blind person so that they can assimilate some kind of conception of the object despite being unable to 'see' what a heavy thing looks like, what color it is, etc.

But for fire, nothing of the sort can be known. Only the tremendous heat can be known.

Maia, you would trip out if you somehow gained sight, and the first thing you saw was fire. The only thing even remotely similar to it in this world is plasma. Anyway, it is the most unusual and bizarre natural phenomena that we have in terms of what it looks like and how it moves. Nothing else quite like it. You can see it clearly, though it's transparent to a degree (of its intensity). You can put your arm right through it, and its shape and form is always changing in size, proportion, and often color. It moves upward from its fuel source as it burns, bloomimg into many concentrated wisps of what look like little curved knife blades if you can imagine a flower arrangement of kitchen knives; that what a small camp fire would look like. Little spikes and spears of a hot amorphous transparent substance darting upward and then vanishing. If the fire isn't contained, it creeps across the grass or whatever it's on the same way fluid from a liquid spill moves across the counter. It literally is the magical stuff in those Tolkien worlds. Like if we earthlings had to show the alien gods the coolest natural element we had, we'd show them fire. It is such an indescribably different 'thing' than everything else in the world that it ought not even be possible on earth. Almost like it belongs only in fantasy worlds.

If you came to earth and saw everything there is to see but fire, and then one day suddenly saw fire, you would trip out more than you would trip out if anything else you saw wasn't seen until way later. If ever a WTF were appropriate, it would be the moment fire was discovered when i stole it from the celestial mafia boss and gave it to man.

[iambiguous]

Then this part: https://youtu.be/niF7KZmqA3k?si=XWMC9-mT37hzNZtm

This is nothing less than fascinating [to me] as we watch the look on Naoh's face. Naoh watches the more technologically advanced tribesman create a fire. This is acting. The look on his face!!! In watching a fire being created by humankind, it changes everything. No longer will they have to risk their lives roaming the countryside hoping to stumble upon a fire created by nature. In a thunderstorm for example.

Humankind had tamed fire.

Now, with Maia, I know she is not able to watch the scene as can a sighted person. But, from her frame of mind, that's not really a problem at all, however, because it's never something she was ever able to do. But the thing is I want to see the expression on her face as she watches this scene. I can describe it to her, of course, but it's just not the same.

But I can't help but feel bad that she is not able to see this incredible scene herself. Why? Because it has to be seen in order to really feel it's power.

Unless, of course, that's not true at all.

Culminating here: https://youtu.be/lJVOTT8N2zM?si=mmdm2og7fuL53gF6

[Maia]

+++Back, perhaps, to that sci-fi machine? The one from an earlier exchange where you get in one pod, I get in another pod, and we are actually able to be inside each other, experiencing what the other is thinking and feeling.

Of course, thinking and feeling like you do "in the moment" is not necessarily the same as understanding it as you do in the moment.+++

As long as it doesn't involve prodding stuff into my brain, I'm all for it.

+++If I could be inside you right now, however, you might note the gap between what you think you are telling me about not seeing black all the time or experiencing a field of vision. In other words, the gap between what may be a day-to-day reality to you but not something I can ever really wrap my own head around. Some things will never be grasped.

Here's AI's take on it:

"No, totally blind people do not see black:
Vision varies: Most blind people have some level of vision, and what they can see differs from person to person.
Light and dark: Most blind people can differentiate between light and dark.
Visual experience: For people who are totally blind, their visual experience is the absence of visual stimuli.
Color: Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before.
Alternative ways to see: Blind people can also see through touch, sound, and Braille.

It's this part in particular...

"Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before."

...I'm just not able "here and now" to grasp what it is then that those blind from birth are "seeing". Or rather not seeing? What is the experience "of seeing nothing" like? Is there a similar rendition of that for those deaf from birth? It's not silence they hear but nothing at all?+++

Yes, this is usually quite a big stumbling block, I've found, when trying to describe it to sighted people. My other senses are all there, but there's no visual field. But, again, it works both ways, and makes it impossible for me to imagine what it's like to have such a field. I have very good spatial awareness and can easily imagine and remember the layout of a room, a building, or a street, for example, but there's no visual component to that.

+++Do they ever follow your posts here? I'm trying to imagine two agnostics engaging in continuing discussions about Paganism. Does Paganism even count as a religion to some who call themselves Pagans? When does communing with Nature and sustaining a spiritual frame of mind become a religion? For some, never?+++

I've never discussed it with them. It's not that I deliberately keep secrets from them, or anything, not least because I don't really have any that are worth keeping, but I also value my privacy.

Personally, I wouldn't call Paganism a religion. It's more a way of interacting with the world. There are some paths within it, such as Wicca, that have more of a religious feeling to them, and, while some of my best friends are Wiccans, I found that, ultimately, it wasn't for me, and that was certainly, in part, because of the overly ceremonial and ritualised nature of its practices.

+++Thank you. In a sense though my situation back then was somewhat akin to "being born into it". In other words, aside from one sister I fell in love with, I don't ever remember being close to either my parents or my other siblings. So, it's not like I had this great family that over time devolved into "every man, woman and child for themselves." It always seemed that way to me. Then the part where in becoming my own best friend I was never at a loss for interesting things to do. I have never really been bored...ever. Or not that I can recall.+++

I'm very rarely bored either, though enforced inactivity sometimes gets to me, such as during the lockdown in 2020, when we had months off work.

+++The thing about being saved, a crucial component of many religious denominations, often revolves around the extent to which your day-to-day experiences are truly satisfying. If you live a life that both fulfills and fascinates you, you may not think much about the need for salvation at all. And then one day out of the blue, godot comes knocking and it's your turn. So, sure, when does a philosophical or spiritual or natural reaction to death give way to reacting to an actual death sentence.+++

Perhaps salvation, for want of a better term, can be found in living a life that does, indeed, fulfil and fascinate you.

+++Of course, each in our own way, I suppose, we are all blind to that. It's just that there will always be those able either to be convinced by others or able to convince themselves that death is then just a hop and a step, and a jump to paradise. And, of course, it's not for nothing, in my view, that the closer some get to it, the more likely they are to be persuaded to be "saved". I know I would if I could.+++

One thing that I'm fairly sure about, I think, is that if an afterlife exists, it doesn't really resemble anything that our feeble human imaginations have come up with over the millennia. As we all know, if there are literally no words to describe something, then it's ineffable, and it's probably much easier to talk about effable things.

+++I certainly agree with that. But, again, it's the enormous stakes involved -- moral commandments, immortality, salvation -- that supersede any real doubts. It's what I call the "psychology of objectivism". We believe what we do because what we do believe is then able to comfort and console us. And I certainly can't rule out at least the possibility that I will bump into an argument here that actually persuades me to, uh, hope again?+++

Just follow your instinct. That's what I always do.

+++That's what the author seems to be intimating. That any number of sighted people actually do believe this and other stereotypical prejudices regarding the blind. On the other hand, if there is no "one size fits all" assessment of blindness, I would expect the parts rooted in dasein to steer us in particular directions. And no doubt even within the blind community itself there are any number of...controversies?+++

The blind community is indeed full of controversies, usually over the most trivial and pointless things.

+++The politics of blindness? On the other hand, how ought it be understood, philosophically or otherwise? And then what actual policies should "society" or "government" pursue? In many respects, when it comes to politics, in my view, blind people are themselves no less all up and down the political spectrum.+++

Organisations like the RNIB, the main UK blind charity, are the worst offenders for this sort of thing, in my opinion, though they undoubtedly do a lot of good, too. I don't usually bother attending their conferences, I mean, who wants to spend a weekend surrounded by hundreds of blind people, but in 2016 they happened to be holding one in my home city, at the university, so I went along. This was a big mistake, as I was forced to sit through a whole afternoon's worth of soul-crushingly tedious talks about how they were basically turning the whole organisation into a glorified call centre, rather than have offices where members of the public can go and talk to real people.

I did, however, get to play some goalball, which I hadn't done since school, so I suppose it wasn't all bad. The meal in the evening was quite good, too.

+++Well, in that case, hopefully one day I'll read it.+++

I'll take that as a promise.

+++Or, once your commitment to the Goddess is complete, how about a...a personal ad? You can start to work on that crucial "profile". Something straight out of the film [i[Singles? Or Single White Female? On the other hand, I suspect I'm just kidding you.+++

The seven years are up at the winter solstice this year.

+++Here, however, there is often a gap between intentions...good...and results...not so good. Then, depending on the actual consequences involved, we can at least acknowledge that the intentions were good.+++

Yes, I always take intentions into account, and never hold such things against people. It's very rare that someone sets out to deliberately hurt me for being blind, though one particular exception to that rule springs to mind, which I mentioned in my last travelogue.

+++That's often how it works. There's the role of government grappled with theoretically [ideologically] by, among others, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists up in the philosophical clouds. Then there's the real world. Where different people have different political convictions precisely because their interactions with the government or "society" are just very different.+++

Society, like life, is all a massive compromise, in so many ways.

+++And I suspect it's not just a coincidence that monotheism is deemed the One True Path by most. In part because it does come down to this crucial prospect...of living forever in Paradise?+++

I suppose there's a sort of natural selection when it comes to One True Paths. Those that offer the most extravagantly precise details about the afterlife are the ones that do best. Though it helps if they have an army, too.

+++Why do you suppose that was? What were your first experiences with nature, and how did they shape your reaction to the world around you. I'm thinking what if those experiences had been grim, as no doubt many living in Florida right now are not exactly singing nature's praises. Again, from my frame of mind, it revolves mostly around those crucial personal experiences. Especially as a child where minds are shaped and molded in ways that are often very much "beyond our control".+++

That's definitely another example of how lucky I've been, to have had such positive experiences at a young age. My first experiences were in the back garden at home, which was full of wonderful and magical things. I used to go out there all the time, summer or winter, rain or shine, getting very dirty and messy in the process. There's a huge, old oak tree at the far end, which I climbed many times, as I grew older. Sometimes I would climb up to my favourite spot and just sit there, listening to nature all around me. And it's all still there, of course, and I can go back there any time I like.

+++Though for some that might be the scary part. They're blind and they live in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. And being unable to see at all can make anyone vulnerable to those who are fully prepared to take advantage of that. May your luck never run out then.

Though again so much of this reaction is just me imagining myself being vulnerable.+++

Thank you. We all, I think, also make our own luck, to a certain extent, at least. It's not as if we're all just flailing around in the world with no agency, though we might feel like that at times.

+++Perhaps the closest I've come to understanding what being different from others regarding something important feels like is in regard to my belief that human interactions are essentially meaningless, that morality is fundamentally fractured and fragmented and that death equals oblivion. But these are beliefs that might change so they are not really the same at all as how congenitally we come into the world with "conditions" that can follow us all the way to the grave.+++

That does sound a bit bleak, to be honest, but, as you say, there is always the possibility of change.

+++I think in many cases it comes down to just knowing that they are around if you need them.+++

Definitely.

+++Understanding the human brain and then connecting those dots to how it intertwines all the rest of us into "I"...? We just do not know so many things. All I can do is to bump into others in places like this and wonder if one of them might somehow manage to nudge me in a whole different direction myself.+++

Yes, the human brain, and how it perceives things, is indeed fascinating.

[Maia]

"the gap between what may be a day-to-day reality to you but not something I can ever really wrap my own head around. Some things will never be grasped"

The other day, i was doing phenomenology, and i thought about how difficult it would be to explain what a camp fire or fire in general looks like to a blind person.

Just about everything else in our visible world of objects and things can be known through tactile sensation. Dimension, shape, mass, weight, texture... these can be known by a blind person so that they can assimilate some kind of conception of the object despite being unable to 'see' what a heavy thing looks like, what color it is, etc.

But for fire, nothing of the sort can be known. Only the tremendous heat can be known.

Maia, you would trip out if you somehow gained sight, and the first thing you saw was fire. The only thing even remotely similar to it in this world is plasma. Anyway, it is the most unusual and bizarre natural phenomena that we have in terms of what it looks like and how it moves. Nothing else quite like it. You can see it clearly, though it's transparent to a degree (of its intensity). You can put your arm right through it, and its shape and form is always changing in size, proportion, and often color. It moves upward from its fuel source as it burns, bloomimg into many concentrated wisps of what look like little curved knife blades if you can imagine a flower arrangement of kitchen knives; that what a small camp fire would look like. Little spikes and spears of a hot amorphous transparent substance darting upward and then vanishing. If the fire isn't contained, it creeps across the grass or whatever it's on the same way fluid from a liquid spill moves across the counter. It literally is the magical stuff in those Tolkien worlds. Like if we earthlings had to show the alien gods the coolest natural element we had, we'd show them fire. It is such an indescribably different 'thing' than everything else in the world that it ought not even be possible on earth. Almost like it belongs only in fantasy worlds.

If you came to earth and saw everything there is to see but fire, and then one day suddenly saw fire, you would trip out more than you would trip out if anything else you saw wasn't seen until way later. If ever a WTF were appropriate, it would be the moment fire was discovered when i stole it from the celestial mafia boss and gave it to man.

I love a good fire, and have been to enough Pagan events to know how nice and cosy it feels to sit round an open bonfire, talking, laughing, eating baked potatoes, and even singing, on occasion.

As for what it looks like, well, I have no idea, of course. It sounds incredible, the way you describe it. If I didn't know otherwise, I wouldn't have necessarily thought that you could even see it, but rather, that it was just heat. As you say, it's no accident that it has always been regarded as the most magical of the elements, the spark of life, as it were.

[promethean75]

There's just no way to offer a simulation of what fire is like through a reference or comparison to something else. Anything else in the world i could just say "it looks like a bigger version of what that toaster over or hanging basket plant feels like" and a blind person could create a concept of it and imagine what it is like.

Fire and lightning. The two craziest natural phenomena... also small spheres of electrical energy forming and moving up the aisles of airborne commercial jets, but very, very rarely... and we sighted people must suffer the inability to convey to you any of the 'likeness' of fire or lightening.

I wouldn't even know how to do it. Okay, check this out. You know what yarn and string is. Long lengths of thin fibers. Imagine way up above your head in the sky, giant strings appearing and disappearing within fractions of a second. Each string is a finite jagged length that begins at a point and stretches across the sky in a web of other strings to another point and then disappears. Lengths stretching miles from the clouds to the ground. All this no more than a second... maybe two in a major storm.

Now, if you could ever see this crazy nonsense in the sky like we can, you too would make up gods like Zeus to explain it. Lightning and fire. Two really weird natural phenomena that the conditions on our planet are fine-tuned enough to produce.

p.s. lightning will kill the crap out of you so it's best to avoid getting struck by it. Pagans often provide offerings and gifts to Zeus to avoid getting struck by it.

[promethean75]

Water is no problem because it is what it feels like. That feeling of the surf crashing on your legs is how that water looks. It's doing exactly what your brain is processing and drawing up. A foamy mass of substance you can feel and shape by your internal cartesian coordinate system processor.

[promethean75]

A blind person without being able to see mathematical symbols can still make sense of the phrase 'infinite space' by considering, hypothetically, the possibility of moving in one direction forever without hitting a boundary. But isn't that also the way sighted people ultimately intuit the idea of 'infinite space'? Nothing in mathematics does more than describe or model something that can't be empirically verified, anyway. The sense of 'infinity' originates through and by a conscious negation of a boundary placed somewhere in a space. We conceive of the 'infinite' by doing exactly what a blind person does to do the same. Imagine moving in a direction without hitting anything.

We thus conclude that the sense of the infinite originates in a phenomenologically intuitive spacial awareness that does not necessarily involve sight, as the subject Maia, who can have no sense of the physical or numeral integer, still clearly demonstrates by being able to describe what an instance of infinite space might be like.

I'd like to do some further research with the subject's consent. We are on the cutting edge of cybernetic neuroscience and discovering what kind of sensory perception is necessary for AI's to process complex mathematical concepts like 'infinity' in demonstrado if also unable to produce sense from visual symbol input (like blind people).

[promethean75]

The big question is, can we get a robot to mimic the behavior of a Maia acting out a metaphor of the infinite by pointing and walking with obstinate determination in one direction and declaring "if space is infinite, i will hit no boundary" without the robot having been programmed to identify such human behavior as a dramatic expression of the concept of 'infinity'. Can our AI know what would be necessary to try and attempt a dramatic demonstration of the infinite or lack thereof (by finally running into a wall), like Maia does. Neither has she ever seen a human being give such a dramatic demonstration, and yet she knows to do it if she wanted to 'show' what infinite and finite space would be like. If nobody has ever suggested or instructed Maia to 'do that' to express her sense of what infinite space would mean, such an analogy would be innate in a chomskyean hardwired way, maybe. As you can see, gentlemen, we are discovering and mapping the possibilities and potentials of AI at the same time. Similar to Searle's Chinese Room Experiment, my idea is called the Chinese Maia Robot Experiment, as undoubtedly Tokyo or Beijing will be where the prototype is first designed.

[Maia]

Yes, if you like, I'm always up for some ground-breaking, and no doubt highly rigorous scientific probing. Your lightning thing was good, by the way, and there's definitely something elemental, and compelling, about a good storm. As long as you've found a nice tree to shelter under, of course, or somewhere equally as safe.

With regard to infinity, I don't need to imagine moving in a line forever without stopping, to imagine what infinity is. I can imagine it all in one go. Or at least, I think I can. Indeed, it's a great deal easier to do than imagining moving in a line forever.

[promethean75]

But we have absolutely no experience of any actual infinities and everything we have in our field of vision is bound to a place defined by limits; the field of vision of both the human eye and the telescope. Thus, from no optical information in the universe, can it be inferred that the universe is infinite. Yet, even blind people have some intuition of what it's like, and they do this by an imaginary removal of boundaries in space... just like sighted people do.

Our idea of infinity is the simple conceptual projection of a room without walls onto all the space scientists call the universe. Nothing more. Endless divisable integers and open sets called 'infinite' are meaningless mathematical data points and do not give us the feeling of infinite space. Don't you find this to be a fascinating fact, madam?

I think all our models of the galaxies floating around in this giant space they call the universe may be completely fabricated by the government. The sun is most likely an enormous light placed above the eco-dome called earth, and all those other planets are nonsense and don't exist.

Fishpie tell her about the digital hologram we're experiencing as reality and how everything is a conscious simulation because that conserves energy better than an actual physical universe of inconceivable size and stuff.

You could be like Neo, Maia. Someone who can see a more fundamental side of the matrix by being unable to see the illusion it creates... what us humans experience as reality.

Could Maia be the one the oracle spoke of?

[promethean75]

No just kidding, but yeah, that link you posted earlier to that catalog of eye implant styles is what you want.

The only possible problem would be that wearing them without your sunglasses could make people in public uncomfortable once, and if they found out, you were blind.

Now, a decent person who didn't have issues would love them and not feel creeped out at all. The novelty of it would be great, and you would be assaulted with "cool!" everywhere you went... even if and more so because of being blind.

That being the case, unless you frequented social events often wherein wearing such eyes are appropriate, or, the bloody brits learn to relax a little, buying them just for one halloween event would be impractical, surely. They can't be cheap.

But yes, any of your friends would sit beside you at the screen and tell you which ones are the cool ones so you don't get the ugly ones.

[Maia]

Yes, I do find this sort of thing fascinating. As for imagining an infinite space, I think this is just an aspect of spatial awareness and mapping, which is something I've always been very good at. To give you an example, I can get a pretty much instantaneous idea of the size and shape of a whole room, through echolocation, regardless of which direction I'm facing. Sound waves don't work like light waves and they bounce around everywhere, both behind me and in front of me. So imagining an infinite space, in all directions, is just an extension of this, I suppose.

Custom eyes are a nice idea, but, as you say, it very much depends on the price.

[iambiguous]

Back, perhaps, to that sci-fi machine? The one from an earlier exchange where you get in one pod, I get in another pod, and we are actually able to be inside each other, experiencing what the other is thinking and feeling.

Of course, thinking and feeling like you do "in the moment" is not necessarily the same as understanding it as you do in the moment.

As long as it doesn't involve prodding stuff into my brain, I'm all for it.

That's where the plot in the novel above goes, as I recall. The pods were first used by doctors to experience the actual symptoms their patients were feeling. But then the "bad guys" reconfigured them into pods that could read their minds as well. Then the stuff that was prodded into their brains to make them more...obedient?

If I could be inside you right now, however, you might note the gap between what you think you are telling me about not seeing black all the time or experiencing a field of vision. In other words, the gap between what may be a day-to-day reality to you but not something I can ever really wrap my own head around. Some things will never be grasped.

Here's AI's take on it:

"No, totally blind people do not see black:
Vision varies: Most blind people have some level of vision, and what they can see differs from person to person.
Light and dark: Most blind people can differentiate between light and dark.
Visual experience: For people who are totally blind, their visual experience is the absence of visual stimuli.
Color: Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before.
Alternative ways to see: Blind people can also see through touch, sound, and Braille.

It's this part in particular...

"Black is not something that people who have been blind from birth have seen before."

...I'm just not able "here and now" to grasp what it is then that those blind from birth are "seeing". Or rather not seeing? What is the experience "of seeing nothing" like? Is there a similar rendition of that for those deaf from birth? It's not silence they hear but nothing at all?

Yes, this is usually quite a big stumbling block, I've found, when trying to describe it to sighted people.

It actually goes beyond being a stumbling block to me. If not black...then what?

One take on it: https://www.orcam.com/en-us/blog/what-d ... people-see

"When we consider the experiences of blind individuals, a common question arises: 'Do blind people see black?' This inquiry delves into the complex nature of blindness and the varied experiences of those who live with it. Contrary to popular belief, blindness does not necessarily equate to seeing complete darkness or blackness. The perception of sight in blind individuals varies greatly, depending on the cause and nature of their vision impairment. Some may experience total darkness, while others perceive light, shapes, or even colors to varying extents. In this article, we'll explore the diverse visual experiences of blind people, shedding light on this often misunderstood aspect of blindness."

How would you describe what it is that you are experiencing right now? What do you "perceive"?

This just popped into my head...

Suppose someone is born blind...but only in one eye. This might just reflect my own ignorance here but could this person explain what the glass eye does not see?

My other senses are all there, but there's no visual field. But, again, it works both ways, and makes it impossible for me to imagine what it's like to have such a field. I have very good spatial awareness and can easily imagine and remember the layout of a room, a building, or a street, for example, but there's no visual component to that.

Try as I might to understand what you are telling me, it just won't sink in. What is the difference between seeing blackness and seeing total darkness?

I wonder if there is a similar experience for those who are born deaf?

Do they ever follow your posts here? I'm trying to imagine two agnostics engaging in continuing discussions about Paganism. Does Paganism even count as a religion to some who call themselves Pagans? When does communing with Nature and sustaining a spiritual frame of mind become a religion? For some, never?

I've never discussed it with them. It's not that I deliberately keep secrets from them, or anything, not least because I don't really have any that are worth keeping, but I also value my privacy.

I hear that. Well, sort of. I never really communicated much at all to my parents; but that's largely because the lack of communication itself never really came up.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, if you did discuss it with them, what do you imagine they might say?

Personally, I wouldn't call Paganism a religion. It's more a way of interacting with the world. There are some paths within it, such as Wicca, that have more of a religious feeling to them, and, while some of my best friends are Wiccans, I found that, ultimately, it wasn't for me, and that was certainly, in part, because of the overly ceremonial and ritualised nature of its practices.

Then [for me] this part...

You interacted with and befriended Wiccans. But your personal experiences inclined you to pull back from actually becoming one of them...given their overly ceremonial and ritualized spiritual practices. Now, given my frame of mind, you might encounter new experiences down the road and change your mind. Unless...unless this is something that your deep down inside you Intuitive Self makes very, very unlikely. Like with abortion, there are just some behaviors that can never really be...justified?

Thank you. In a sense though my situation back then was somewhat akin to "being born into it". In other words, aside from one sister I fell in love with, I don't ever remember being close to either my parents or my other siblings. So, it's not like I had this great family that over time devolved into "every man, woman and child for themselves." It always seemed that way to me. Then the part where in becoming my own best friend I was never at a loss for interesting things to do. I have never really been bored...ever. Or not that I can recall.

I'm very rarely bored either, though enforced inactivity sometimes gets to me, such as during the lockdown in 2020, when we had months off work.

Fortunately, for me, practically everything I did throughout the entire pandemic was inside. Though not just inside my head.

The thing about being saved, a crucial component of many religious denominations, often revolves around the extent to which your day-to-day experiences are truly satisfying. If you live a life that both fulfills and fascinates you, you may not think much about the need for salvation at all. And then one day out of the blue, godot comes knocking and it's your turn. So, sure, when does a philosophical or spiritual or natural reaction to death give way to reacting to an actual death sentence.

Perhaps salvation, for want of a better term, can be found in living a life that does, indeed, fulfil and fascinate you.

All I know -- or rather think I know -- is that the day my life stops being fascinating and fulfilling, well, what would be the point of going on?

Of course, each in our own way, I suppose, we are all blind to that. It's just that there will always be those able either to be convinced by others or able to convince themselves that death is then just a hop and a step, and a jump to paradise. And, of course, it's not for nothing, in my view, that the closer some get to it, the more likely they are to be persuaded to be "saved". I know I would if I could.

One thing that I'm fairly sure about, I think, is that if an afterlife exists, it doesn't really resemble anything that our feeble human imaginations have come up with over the millennia. As we all know, if there are literally no words to describe something, then it's ineffable, and it's probably much easier to talk about effable things.

Then the part where those able to believe in an afterlife [God or No God] ponder "I" on the other side. Will the blind see, will the deaf hear, will the crippled walk? Or do our souls transcend such physical limitations?

I certainly agree with that. But, again, it's the enormous stakes involved -- moral commandments, immortality, salvation -- that supersede any real doubts. It's what I call the "psychology of objectivism". We believe what we do because what we do believe is then able to comfort and console us. And I certainly can't rule out at least the possibility that I will bump into an argument here that actually persuades me to, uh, hope again?

Just follow your instinct. That's what I always do.

On the other hand, your instincts seem to be intertwined in this intuitive self...a True Self?...that through the Goddess you have come to accept as "being there" to allow you to resolve these things in a way I once embodied myself. Just no more.

That's what the author seems to be intimating. That any number of sighted people actually do believe this and other stereotypical prejudices regarding the blind. On the other hand, if there is no "one size fits all" assessment of blindness, I would expect the parts rooted in dasein to steer us in particular directions. And no doubt even within the blind community itself there are any number of...controversies?

The blind community is indeed full of controversies, usually over the most trivial and pointless things.

Trivial and pointless to some, perhaps, but they may well be anything but for others.

I'll go out on a limb here...

You seem at times [to me] more partial to being around sighted than blind people. Is there any possibility at all, then, that this revolves around a part of you that does resent being blind? Or, again, is that just me imagining myself being born blind? Given the importance of our senses [vision and hearing in particular] in understand the world around us, I would need to be around others who lived in the same world I did.

The politics of blindness? On the other hand, how ought it be understood, philosophically or otherwise? And then what actual policies should "society" or "government" pursue? In many respects, when it comes to politics, in my view, blind people are themselves no less all up and down the political spectrum.

Organisations like the RNIB, the main UK blind charity, are the worst offenders for this sort of thing, in my opinion, though they undoubtedly do a lot of good, too. I don't usually bother attending their conferences, I mean, who wants to spend a weekend surrounded by hundreds of blind people, but in 2016 they happened to be holding one in my home city, at the university, so I went along. This was a big mistake, as I was forced to sit through a whole afternoon's worth of soul-crushingly tedious talks about how they were basically turning the whole organisation into a glorified call centre, rather than have offices where members of the public can go and talk to real people.

Well, if I were blind, I'd need to be around others who were blind. I don't imagine that would make me dependent on them, however, and it would provide me with crucial experiences embedded in sharing a part of myself which, from my perspective here and now, is a fundamental part of being human: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling.

Or, once your commitment to the Goddess is complete, how about a...a personal ad? You can start to work on that crucial "profile". Something straight out of the film Singles? Or Single White Female? On the other hand, I suspect I'm just kidding you.

The seven years are up at the winter solstice this year.

Uh, then what? No, seriously, will that be a turning point in your life...you meet someone, you fall in love, you sustain a relationship, maybe you have a child together...or will you just carry on as you are now?

In other words, it is Saturday, December 21, 2024, 4:19 AM....what are you thinking?

Have others you've known made similar commitments? Are these commitments shared with other Pagans, or is it more in the way of a personal relationship? Also, is there a "standard commitment" or is every individual Pagan going to forge his or her own assessmenmt of what's okay and what's not. For example, copulation is taboo but you can still masturbate?

It's all very surreal to me. With traditional religious/spiritual paths there is often a Scripture. Or a church where there's a place for everyone but only if everyone accepts their community obligations.

Here, however, there is often a gap between intentions...good...and results...not so good. Then, depending on the actual consequences involved, we can at least acknowledge that the intentions were good.

Yes, I always take intentions into account, and never hold such things against people. It's very rare that someone sets out to deliberately hurt me for being blind, though one particular exception to that rule springs to mind, which I mentioned in my last travelogue.

I don't understand. How can someone who knows you have been blind from birth bring your blindness up? Given that it was entirely beyond your control. Unless it was the booze and the marijuana? Or just a joke?

That's often how it works. There's the role of government grappled with theoretically [ideologically] by, among others, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists up in the philosophical clouds. Then there's the real world. Where different people have different political convictions precisely because their interactions with the government or "society" are just very different.

Society, like life, is all a massive compromise, in so many ways.

But then all those out there who insist it need not involve any compromising at all. Just agree with everything they say about, well, everything.

And I suspect it's not just a coincidence that monotheism is deemed the One True Path by most. In part because it does come down to this crucial prospect...of living forever in Paradise?

I suppose there's a sort of natural selection when it comes to One True Paths. Those that offer the most extravagantly precise details about the afterlife are the ones that do best. Though it helps if they have an army, too.

There you go!

Why do you suppose that was? What were your first experiences with nature, and how did they shape your reaction to the world around you. I'm thinking what if those experiences had been grim, as no doubt many living in Florida right now are not exactly singing nature's praises. Again, from my frame of mind, it revolves mostly around those crucial personal experiences. Especially as a child where minds are shaped and molded in ways that are often very much "beyond our control".

That's definitely another example of how lucky I've been, to have had such positive experiences at a young age. My first experiences were in the back garden at home, which was full of wonderful and magical things. I used to go out there all the time, summer or winter, rain or shine, getting very dirty and messy in the process. There's a huge, old oak tree at the far end, which I climbed many times, as I grew older. Sometimes I would climb up to my favourite spot and just sit there, listening to nature all around me. And it's all still there, of course, and I can go back there any time I like.

Thanks, that was an especially delightful description.

Though for some that might be the scary part. They're blind and they live in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. And being unable to see at all can make anyone vulnerable to those who are fully prepared to take advantage of that. May your luck never run out then.

Though again so much of this reaction is just me imagining myself being vulnerable.

Thank you. We all, I think, also make our own luck, to a certain extent, at least. It's not as if we're all just flailing around in the world with no agency, though we might feel like that at times.

Now all I have to do is to convince myself that human beings really do have agency.

Perhaps the closest I've come to understanding what being different from others regarding something important feels like is in regard to my belief that human interactions are essentially meaningless, that morality is fundamentally fractured and fragmented and that death equals oblivion. But these are beliefs that might change so they are not really the same at all as how congenitally we come into the world with "conditions" that can follow us all the way to the grave.

That does sound a bit bleak, to be honest, but, as you say, there is always the possibility of change.

Oh, it's more than just a bit bleak. But I still have my distractions -- music, film, literature, art etc. -- to put it in perspective.

[Maia]

+++It actually goes beyond being a stumbling block to me. If not black...then what?

One take on it: https://www.orcam.com/en-us/blog/what-d ... people-see

"When we consider the experiences of blind individuals, a common question arises: 'Do blind people see black?' This inquiry delves into the complex nature of blindness and the varied experiences of those who live with it. Contrary to popular belief, blindness does not necessarily equate to seeing complete darkness or blackness. The perception of sight in blind individuals varies greatly, depending on the cause and nature of their vision impairment. Some may experience total darkness, while others perceive light, shapes, or even colors to varying extents. In this article, we'll explore the diverse visual experiences of blind people, shedding light on this often misunderstood aspect of blindness."

How would you describe what it is that you are experiencing right now? What do you "perceive"?+++

I don't perceive anything, visually. I could also say nothing, but that could, I suppose, be misconstrued as saying blackness or darkness, but this would be incorrect. As I understand it, sighted people, and even partially sighted people, always have an ever-present visual field in their mind. I don't have such a field. I have an auditory field, a tactile field, an olfactory field, and so on, though none of these is dominant in the way that, again, as I understand it, a visual field is. They all work together, in fact.

I don't have any problem imagining objects, rooms, routes inside buildings or on the street, anything at all, instantaneously, from all angles at once, Spatial mapping, in other words. But none of these have a visual component.

+++This just popped into my head...

Suppose someone is born blind...but only in one eye. This might just reflect my own ignorance here but could this person explain what the glass eye does not see?+++

Someone who is blind in one eye is not actually blind, and would, no doubt, have a visual field in their mind.

Also, prosthetic eyes are no longer made of glass, but I suppose that's probably obvious.

+++Try as I might to understand what you are telling me, it just won't sink in. What is the difference between seeing blackness and seeing total darkness?

I wonder if there is a similar experience for those who are born deaf?+++

I don't see total darkness, as I don't see anything.

People who have lost their sight might see total darkness, I suppose, though they might see any number of other things, too. I'm not sure if that's what the writer of the article you linked to was getting at, as it sounds a bit confusing, to be honest.

It's also worth pointing out that it's perfectly possible that someone might be using the term darkness in a metaphorical sense. I've done it myself. For example, I recently posted the lyrics to Sally Oldfield's song Nenya, because of the strong connection I felt towards it when I was little.

Ella kom ye la! I cried unto these ones
I've wandered through the dark so long!
I've waited through the night for the rising sun!

Sally is definitely not referring to blindness here, as she's writing about Galadriel, who obviously wasn't blind. But I interpreted it differently, as if she was speaking to me, wandering through the darkness, as it were, but using darkness as a metaphor for blindness, rather than an actual description of it, because that would be wrong.

+++I hear that. Well, sort of. I never really communicated much at all to my parents; but that's largely because the lack of communication itself never really came up.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, if you did discuss it with them, what do you imagine they might say?+++

They would probably say I was trying to describe things that ultimately can't be described, either in reference to blindness, or Paganism.

+++Then [for me] this part...

You interacted with and befriended Wiccans. But your personal experiences inclined you to pull back from actually becoming one of them...given their overly ceremonial and ritualized spiritual practices. Now, given my frame of mind, you might encounter new experiences down the road and change your mind. Unless...unless this is something that your deep down inside you Intuitive Self makes very, very unlikely. Like with abortion, there are just some behaviors that can never really be...justified?+++

I did become one of them. I joined a Wiccan coven and went through both first and second degree initiation, and I'm still friends with them now. I doubt if I would want to go back on a full time basis, but who knows?

+++Fortunately, for me, practically everything I did throughout the entire pandemic was inside. Though not just inside my head.+++

You were very lucky, then. I took every opportunity I could to get out and go for a walk. We were technically only allowed one walk a day, but could also, separately, go to the shops and buy things, so I took advantage of this apparent loophole as often as I could. Without, incidentally, wearing a mask, as doing so would have messed up my echolocation, and so I had a legal exemption. Not that anyone ever questioned it.

I was never in fear of my life, or anything like that, as I fell way outside the vulnerable demographics, and indeed, have always enjoyed robust good health, as the professionals tend to put it. All that physical activity, I suppose. I hardly even ever get colds.

+++All I know -- or rather think I know -- is that the day my life stops being fascinating and fulfilling, well, what would be the point of going on?+++

I fully agree.

+++Then the part where those able to believe in an afterlife [God or No God] ponder "I" on the other side. Will the blind see, will the deaf hear, will the crippled walk? Or do our souls transcend such physical limitations?+++

I was once told by a tarot reader that all my future incarnations will also be blind, as all my past ones supposedly were too. I wasn't very happy about that, but thankfully, I'm under no obligation to believe it, nor indeed in reincarnation at all.

+++Trivial and pointless to some, perhaps, but they may well be anything but for others.

I'll go out on a limb here...

You seem at times [to me] more partial to being around sighted than blind people. Is there any possibility at all, then, that this revolves around a part of you that does resent being blind? Or, again, is that just me imagining myself being born blind? Given the importance of our senses [vision and hearing in particular] in understand the world around us, I would need to be around others who lived in the same world I did.+++

I do indeed very much prefer to be around sighted people. I don't resent being blind, though, not even a little bit, and certainly not in the way that I sometimes did when I was little. What's the point of resenting things that you can't change?

+++Well, if I were blind, I'd need to be around others who were blind. I don't imagine that would make me dependent on them, however, and it would provide me with crucial experiences embedded in sharing a part of myself which, from my perspective here and now, is a fundamental part of being human: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling.+++

It's different, of course, for people who lose their sight.

+++Uh, then what? No, seriously, will that be a turning point in your life...you meet someone, you fall in love, you sustain a relationship, maybe you have a child together...or will you just carry on as you are now?+++

I'll just go with the flow. If something happens, it happens.

+++Have others you've known made similar commitments? Are these commitments shared with other Pagans, or is it more in the way of a personal relationship? Also, is there a "standard commitment" or is every individual Pagan going to forge his or her own assessmenmt of what's okay and what's not.+++

It was just something I felt that I needed to do at the time. If someone had walked into my life and I fell head over heels in love with them, or whatever, I would have given myself permission to have abandoned it. That didn't happen, though, and, so far at least, it has only ever really happened once, for me.

+++I don't understand. How can someone who knows you have been blind from birth bring your blindness up? Given that it was entirely beyond your control. Unless it was the booze and the marijuana? Or just a joke?+++

It wasn't a joke, because that wouldn't have bothered me. In fact, the opposite is true. If someone makes a joke about it, then it means they feel comfortable enough around me to do so. But there's a difference between joking and being deliberately offensive and hurtful, which is what the individual in question was doing with his mates, when he thought I couldn't hear him. He claimed to be joking, of course, when I confronted him, but at the very least, what it told me is that he felt embarrassed about the fact that his girlfriend was blind, and needed to somehow save face, with his friends, by saying those things. And that, I'm sorry to say, just isn't good enough. As far as I'm concerned, with relationships, it's all or nothing.

+++Thanks, that was an especially delightful description.+++

You're welcome.

+++Now all I have to do is to convince myself that human beings really do have agency.+++

Either they do, or they think they do.

+++Oh, it's more than just a bit bleak. But I still have my distractions -- music, film, literature, art etc. -- to put it in perspective.+++

That's very good to hear.