There’s no denying we all suffer in some way at some time and, except in the sense of choosing certain lifestyles, we are rarely able to choose our own ailments. Some of them we inherit, some we bring on ourselves because they go with a certain job or place.
But even if we could choose our ailments, we would not necessarily choose them appropriately.
Ask someone if they would prefer to lose their sight or their hearing and the chances are they would choose hearing, because it’s so easy to envisage the awfulness of blindness – being unable to read or see beautiful things, or horrid things you can bump into. You only have you put your hand over your eyes to feel helpless.
Having noise stop, on the other hand, is often very welcome. Even people who have lived near the deaf often have no idea how it cuts one off; what it’s like when even ordinary conversation isn’t possible.
My mother, who was totally deaf but good at lip-reading, was once when she was a widow taken out to dinner by one of my father’s ex-pupils. She looked forward to it very much, but the next day she said: “It was so disappointing. The restaurant was very dark, only candles and I couldn’t read a thing he said.”
This well-meaning, highly educated man simply didn’t realise he was making conversation impossible. Ears may not always be less precious than eyes, but all too often you need both, and I suppose it’s no pity that we can’t choose anyway.
What do you think? Have your say below
Make some noise about going deaf | Katharine Whitehorn
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