WHO AM I?I have seven heavenly panelsLeading up to a pointed sphereI'm multidimensional like a crystalAnd my center is never clear.I'm an inventor and pioneer.A mentor to my peers.But I'm not as sound as my shell reveals,Because I'm tormented by my fears -That may appear to be groundedBut my insides are filled with tears.And the sadness is well-founded,From years and yearsOf traumatic experiencesCompoundedIn the most dementedAtmospheres.I talk but feel like nobody hears.Has reason disappeared?And, God, are you near?This is Giza's 7th light forceAnd I'm asking you to interfere.I can no longer walk amongst the blind and deadWith open eyes and ears.I'm trying to maintain my sanityAnd to straighten up my veneerAs I roll amongst the growing calamitiesFlowing on Earth's severely trashedFrontier.Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness. . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision.

In fact, his travelogues spend amazingly little time discussing his blindness. Only one passage stands out for its frank discussion of his handicap and how it changed his worldview. In it, Holman was reminiscing about a few rendezvous from his past. Disarmingly, he admitted that he had no idea what his paramours looked like, or even whether they were homely. Moreover, he didn't care: by abandoning the standards of the sighted world, he argues, he could tap into a more divine and more authentic beauty. Hearing a woman's voice and feeling her caresses -- and then filling in what was missing with his own fancy -- gave him more pleasure than the mere sight of a women ever had, he said, a pleasure beyond reality. Are there any who imagine, Holman asked, that my loss of eyesight must necessarily deny me the enjoyment of such contemplation? How much more do I pity the mental darkness which could give rise to such an error.

Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist.

What dreams would he have, not seeing. Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being born that way?

The soldier stared at Ingrid. His silence was elastic, slowly curling a rope around her neck.

I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything...All of the words I'd written to her over all of those years, had I never said anything to hear at all?

No one needed to say it, but the room overflowed with that sort of blessing. The combination of loss and abundance. The abundance that has no guilt. The loss that has no fix. The simple tiredness that is not weary. The hope not built on blindness.

Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.

And you're blind?Uh-huh, Iggy said, trying to sound bored.Were you born that way?No.How did you become blind, uh, Jeff, is it?Yeah, Jeff. Well, I looked directly at the sun, you know, the way they always tell you not to. If only I had listened.

When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?

Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.

What's simple is that everything good comes from God, and everything bad comes from man. Where it gets complicated is that everything seemingly good but ultimately bad comes from man, and everything seemingly bad but ultimately good comes from God.

Never take advice about never taking advice. That is an old vice of men - to dish it out without being able to take it - the blind leading the blind into more blindness.