Blindness What It Is What It Does And How To Live With It

In this New York Times bestseller, Isaac Lidsky draws on his experience of achieving immense success, joy, and fulfillment while losing his sight to a blinding disease to show us that it isn’t external circumstances, but how we perceive and respond to them, that governs our reality. Fear has a tendency to give us tunnel vision—we fill the unknown with our worst imaginings and cling to what’s familiar. But when confronted with new challenges, we need to think more broadly and adapt. When Isaac Lidsky learned that he was beginning to go blind at age thirteen, eventually losing his sight entirely by the time he was twenty-five, he initially thought that blindness would mean an end to his early success and his hopes for the future. Paradoxically, losing his sight gave him the vision to take responsibility for his reality and thrive. Lidsky graduated from Harvard College at age nineteen, served as a Supreme Court law clerk, fathered four children, and turned a failing construction subcontractor into a highly profitable business. Whether we’re blind or not, our vision is limited by our past experiences, biases, and emotions. Lidsky shows us how we can overcome paralyzing fears, avoid falling prey to our own assumptions and faulty leaps of logic, silence our inner critic, harness our strength, and live with open hearts and minds. In sharing his hard-won insights, Lidsky shows us how we too can confront life's trials with initiative, humor, and grace.

The ability to see deeply affects how human beings perceive and interpret the world around them. For most people, eyesight is part of everyday communication, social activities, educational and professional pursuits, the care of others, and the maintenance of personal health, independence, and mobility. Functioning eyes and vision system can reduce an adult's risk of chronic health conditions, death, falls and injuries, social isolation, depression, and other psychological problems. In children, properly maintained eye and vision health contributes to a child's social development, academic achievement, and better health across the lifespan. The public generally recognizes its reliance on sight and fears its loss, but emphasis on eye and vision health, in general, has not been integrated into daily life to the same extent as other health promotion activities, such as teeth brushing; hand washing; physical and mental exercise; and various injury prevention behaviors. A larger population health approach is needed to engage a wide range of stakeholders in coordinated efforts that can sustain the scope of behavior change. The shaping of socioeconomic environments can eventually lead to new social norms that promote eye and vision health. Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative: Vision for Tomorrow proposes a new population-centered framework to guide action and coordination among various, and sometimes competing, stakeholders in pursuit of improved eye and vision health and health equity in the United States. Building on the momentum of previous public health efforts, this report also introduces a model for action that highlights different levels of prevention activities across a range of stakeholders and provides specific examples of how population health strategies can be translated into cohesive areas for action at federal, state, and local levels.

In the author's words . . . When I graduated in 1978 from the University of the South, I cherished the ideal behind the inscription in Sewanee's university seal. Ecce quam bonum-the first lines of Psalm 133, "Behold, how good it is." But as I entered the adult world of commerce and culture, there were too few times when I actually beheld the good. The world seemed far too harsh to me, so full of inequality and conflict. I had to dig deep for the strength and determination to keep going. Thirty-five years later, however, my perception of that collegiate instruction-to see the good-carries a very different meaning. Struggle, controversy, disappointment are integral to life, certainly, yet, within the nature of that harsh reality, I now also find bright dimensions of meaning and hope. Joy and love are, in fact, ever-present in our circumstances . . . whatever those circumstances may be. Sue W. Martin, eqb, September 2013 Sue Wiygul Martin has written a deeply honest and moving account of the rebuilding of her life after a desperate, impetuous act in her youth ended in traumatic blindness. Since that day, she has greeted the world with her trademark determination and humor, accepting each new day of challenge while squarely facing the issues attending her post-traumatic adjustment. Now, after more than thirty years of an extraordinary recovery and reconciliation with the past, Martin is ready to share the simple truth of her journey. Martin's truth is a universal truth, one which is so easy to lose sight of-each and every person, man or woman, has a story worth telling. We are all the same, yet so beautifully different. So, fasten your seat belts. Sue Martin would like to take you on a wild ride through this life of hers. Get ready for some joy, sorrow, beauty, a few cosmic slaps of enlightenment, and a thousand other thoughts and feelings along the way.

“With deft prose and page after page of keen insights, Heffernan shows why we close our eyes to facts that threaten our families, our livelihood, and our self-image--and, even better, she points the way out of the darkness.” --Daniel H. Pink In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan's Willful Blindness is a tour de force on human behavior that will open your eyes. Why, after every major accident and blunder, do we look back and say, How could we have been so blind? Why do some people see what others don't? And how can we change? Drawing on studies by psychologists and neuroscientists, and from interviews with business leaders, whistleblowers, and white collar criminals, distinguished businesswoman and writer Margaret Heffernan examines the phenomenon of willful blindness, exploring the reasons that individuals and groups are blind to impending personal tragedies, corporate collapses, engineering failures-even crimes against humanity. We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. But greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how-by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems-we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive.

Unravels the ways that blind persons come to understand and live their lives. It shows that blindness is a life worth living and that blind persons must grapple with the question of what kind of blind person they choose to be.

Have you ever wondered how a blind person pours a cup of coffee? Or how they and their guide dog know when it's safe to cross a busy road?When Lois Strachan lost her sight at the age of 21 years she had to learn the answers to these and countless other questions of how to live as a blind person in a sighted world.In this delightfully quirky and entertaining book Lois shares some of the secrets she discovered about how to live an "ordinary" life in an extraordinary way despite her disability.The second edition of A Different Way of Seeing contains the complete original book with an additional 30% new content - many more stories and updated information that add to this humorous and enlightening perspective of what it's really like living life as a blind person. Author Interview: Q: Did you always want to become a writer?A: No, when I was young I wanted to be a rock musician. Then I wanted to become an archeologist. And then I lost my sight. I became an author almost by accident when I met an illustrator who encouraged me to publish several children's books I'd written years previously. These became the series "The Adventures of Missy Mouse". Next thing, a mentor suggested I write a book describing how I accomplish tasks to answer the questions that audiences at my motivational talks had. Which became my narrative non-fiction, "A Different Way of Seeing". That was the point at which I fell in love with writing as a career. Q: Why write about your blindness?A: I think that one of the greatest challenges we have as the blind and visually impaired community is that people do not understand how we accomplish tasks and assume, incorrectly, that those tasks are either hard or impossible for us. My book is an attempt to bridge that gap of understanding to build greater levels of inclusion within society and the workplace. Q: Who should read your book? A: Am I allowed to say that everyone should read it? My target audience is anyone interested in learning how I live my life as a blind woman, anyone who is experiencing sight loss, or anyone interested in a feel-good story of moving forward after a lifechanging challenge. Although I'm more than happy for anyone else to read it! Q: What topics do you write about? A: I write about many different aspects of my life, from tasks like cooking, cleaning, selecting clothing, applying make-up, using technology, right the way through to topics like travel, entertainment, and of course, my three beautiful guide dogs. And I sprinkle stories of my personal experiences throughout the book.Q: What message do you want readers to take away from your book? A: That disability does not mean inability - that we have tools and techniques as members of the visually impaired community that allow us to do almost anything that a sighted person can. Q: What part of the book did you most enjoy writing?A: Definitely the chapters about my wonderful guide dogs, who have walked so much of the journey alongside me. Q: Your writing is unexpectedly light-hearted. Was that a deliberate decision when you wrote the book? A: Yes and no. Ralph Smedley, the founder of Toastmasters International, said that we learn best in moments of enjoyment. So I felt I wanted the book to focus on some of the light-hearted stories from my life as a blind woman. But I usually see the lighter side of things that happen to me, so it's true to who I am as a person. Q: In your book you mention how much you love reading. What types of books do you enjoy most?A: I'm something of an escapist reader, so anything that will take me on a journey to another time or place. My current favourite genres are urban fantasy, alternate history, and literary fiction... oh, and I also enjoy travel memoirs. To be honest, I'll read almost anything that suits my mood at the time.

Colorblindness has become an integral part of the national conversation on race in America. Given the assumptions behind this influential metaphor—that being blind to race will lead to racial equality—it's curious that, until now, we have not considered if or how the blind "see" race. Most sighted people assume that the answer is obvious: they don't, and are therefore incapable of racial bias—an example that the sighted community should presumably follow. In Blinded by Sight,Osagie K. Obasogie shares a startling observation made during discussions with people from all walks of life who have been blind since birth: even the blind aren't colorblind—blind people understand race visually, just like everyone else. Ask a blind person what race is, and they will more than likely refer to visual cues such as skin color. Obasogie finds that, because blind people think about race visually, they orient their lives around these understandings in terms of who they are friends with, who they date, and much more. In Blinded by Sight, Obasogie argues that rather than being visually obvious, both blind and sighted people are socialized to see race in particular ways, even to a point where blind people "see" race. So what does this mean for how we live and the laws that govern our society? Obasogie delves into these questions and uncovers how color blindness in law, public policy, and culture will not lead us to any imagined racial utopia.