Writing Free

I really struggled to put this on the website.  I really did.  This is my narrow path, and one I walk every second of every day.  What is it?  My hearing.

I was probably born without the full range of hearing that many people posess.  I understand and empathise with those who do not.  I had glue ear as a child, and this progressed to a permanent perforation in my left ear.  For many years, my left ear always sounded like things were underwater.  My right ear has sustained a slight loss, but negligible compared to the 70-80% of the left.

To make matters worse, I am currently suffering (and yes it is suffering) from a persistent tinnitus in the left ear.  That’s taken care of the remaining 20-30%, and currently makes wearing my hearing aid impractical.

So.  Let’s put two things together.  My hearing - or lack of.  My faith - which should involve miracles.  It’s true, that once I was saved by faith from an infection of the ear that would have destroyed all my hearing, but by the grace of God it did not.  Medical estimates put total loss at around 5-10 years, yet here I am 11 years later still able to hear.  Not as much as in my teens mind you…

How do I get people to understand my hearing loss?  I could tell them to walk around with their fingers in their ears all day.  People quickly forget though.  I could spend the rest of my life asking people to repeat things (usually about 2-3 times before I understand what they’ve said).  But my best strategy is to a: avoid groups and other sound distractions and b: bottle it up.

Yup, you read right.  Every time someone says ‘don’t worry, it wasn’t important’ whenever I ask them to repeat something, I fill with anger and frustration.  Everytime I misunderstand what someone says, usually to my own embarassement, I fill with anger and frustration.  Every time I have to guess what people say (a fair bit of the time), I feel awkward.  If I miss a single point of a conversation, I’m lost.  I’ll just give up there and then.

So I have a lot of anger in me.  And frustration.  Is it worth taking out on someone?  No.  Is it going to change them through encouragement?  No.  I find that never works, but then again, letting people know “I can’t hear you very well, even though you’re talking to my face” never worked for me either.

Going back, when a teacher first noticed i had hearing problems, they said to my parents, ‘He never seems to pay attention, but if you get his attention, he’s lip-reading’.  That’s one of my coping strategies.  I lip read to accentuate the muffled mess that enters my ears.

Okay, now it’s coming to crunch time?  Will God heal me fully?  I have no definitive answer to that.  If not, what is God teaching me?  Patience?  I thought I’d have that one tapped by now.

I have no real understanding of why I was created imperfectly.  Why did God create me without the full range of senses?  No idea.  But I do know that God made me, He loves me, even during those times when I feel absolutely miserable because I’ve let the hearing issue get to me.

It’s a semi-silent world for me.  Most of the rest of the time it’s a muffled mess, excepting the times when I’m with people one-to-one or two-to-one, where I can hear and understand.

This post is an attempt at trying to get people to understand, as much as myself understanding, what it’s like to live with an obvious (to myself) disability.

No wonder I prefer to stick my head in the Bible

I’ve known this film.  For a long time.  Since before I even saw it.  Why?  Becuase this is probably one of the more sampled films in terms of dance music than any other.  It still amazes me, that the messianic overtones of the film work on many levels.  The theme of the film is ultimately redemption for the planet of Arrakis, by means of prophecy (the sleeper will awaken) and by action.  The film came to my knowledge of samples in techno, from the aforementioned ‘the sleeper will awaken’, to ‘know then, that this is the year 10,191…’  and ’soon we will begin to fold space’.

I grew up on films like this and Blade Runner.  Just by listening to electronic music.  Who says that dance/electronic music would destroy culture?  To my mind, it just enhances the culture we live in.  I would never have known these films in any other way, except by complete accident*

*I read Dune many years ago.  I must read it again, because I forget the many plot nuances.  Oh, and why hasn’t ‘Voyage of the Space Beagle’ been made into a film yet??

I’ve had a few ‘problems’ with the home network, and works been too busy to get any blogging done, so the promised uploads and restoring the photo’s has been delayed.  I’m currently sorting through the old site’s photos, and reviewing some plugins for displaying the pics.

It’s been a turbulent time for the rich rock website, going from part-time photoblog to a photoblog, and back to a text-based parttime photoblog.

So, now I can write words, and am starting from scratch, what is the new vision for my site?  Well, I do journal in a Moleskine book, and chanced upon this awesome theme, reflecting that.  I’ll see over the next few days whether this is a good template.  I want to see what photo’s look like, and I’ll have to reinstall all the usual plugins, so for now, my photo library is missing.

Expect more tomorrow.