"The Country of the Blind"

The movie we watched the other day--The Music Never Stopped--is based on a story called "The Last Hippie." While doing a "google search" to find out more information about the character in the movie (and story) I discovered that the story was in a book called An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks. I checked the book out of the library and started to read it. In the book the author tells seven paradoxical tales of neurological disorder and creativity. Fascinating!

In the first tale there is a footnote where Sacks mentions a short story by H.G. Wells "The Country of the Blind." In this story for fourteen generations the people in this country have been blind and cut off completely from the seeing world. They have made for themselves new sensibilities and imagination. By a freak accident a "seeing" man--Nunez--finds them. He is determined to teach them about sight and what they have been missing. Yet, the people feel that it is he who is inferior for he doesn't have the sensibilities they have.

This story by H.G. Wells is a reminder that we should not look upon others who may not have what we consider assets as having deficits. The very things we may consider deficits may have allowed them to develop assets we don't have. As we recognize and celebrate those assets we can all be enriched.