From the Outer to the Inner Ear
Something unfortunate happened to me last week, though I've always been one to look at the silver lining in the clouds. On Sunday, after working out at the gym, I noticed a decline in my hearing over the next several days, accompanied with imbalance and ringing in my ears. It turned my view from the outer world to the inner, as I once again find myself grappling with my Deafness.
I was having a conversation with a few of the poets at a bar last week and one of them said I had this mysterious quality. The other said, I don't know about that, I think Franz is really open. I appreciated the observation from the first poet, and the compliment from the second. I think they are both true, and they both stem from being Deaf.
I'm certainly not a mysterious person by nature, but the nature of deafness and the inner ear, as well as the experiences and psychology that come with it, are mysteries that hearing people don't understand. I live in a bustling vibrant city on the edge of a great desert. I need only to look out a window when people are talking around me to see the desolation and the isolation that come with my condition.
I live in this vibrant city because deafness propels me to go outside of my comfort zone again and again. Because I do not want to be an abnormal person, I strive to be an exceptional person. Because I do not want to be downtrodden, I try to climb higher and further than others. I don't look at it as competition so much as compensation.
This hearing loss, whether permanent or temporary, is a strong wake-up call. I need to get back in touch with the Deaf community and focus on sign language. I've returned to writing a novel about the Deaf in Portland. And I am preparing for what may well be inevitable, a cochlear implant.
It may be overly dramatic, but I've always feared becoming a machine in this way. On the outside, a cochlear implant isn't much more noticeable than a hearing aid. A sound processor and microphone send signals to a dime sized internal processor placed just inside the ear. This internal processor is connected with several millimeter-thick wires inserted directly into the cochlea, which send sound signals directly to the brain.
I've been told since I was eight years old that I would hear better with an implant. In the twenty years since, my hearing has deteriorated more and the technology for the implant has improved dramatically. With an implant, I would hear much better than I've ever heard in my life.
So what stops me? (Well, the $50,000 price tag for one, but insurance should cover that.) What stops me is some deeper spiritual core that doesn't want to turn away from who I am, a Deaf man. I don't want my senses overrun with technology and computers. I don't want to be dependent on the subsidiary of a huge corporation. Ask many Deaf or otherwise disabled people what they would like and it's quite possible we'd all be in agreement. We simply want to be normal, endowed with the five senses that most have at birth. How nice it would be to have that breeziness that comes with the senses and the body's health being in intimate concord, a body so in tune that it forgets its limitations and mortality.
I already have a machine that helps me hear. I already have metal in my ear, a tiny wire that holds my eardrum in place, and which has done its job since I was eight years old. Most importantly, I have realized that finding my true potential lies in both an inner and outer world. I will always have that inner world, but to really share my abilities with the world at large, I will always be dependent on the wonders of modern technology.
I was having a conversation with a few of the poets at a bar last week and one of them said I had this mysterious quality. The other said, I don't know about that, I think Franz is really open. I appreciated the observation from the first poet, and the compliment from the second. I think they are both true, and they both stem from being Deaf.
I'm certainly not a mysterious person by nature, but the nature of deafness and the inner ear, as well as the experiences and psychology that come with it, are mysteries that hearing people don't understand. I live in a bustling vibrant city on the edge of a great desert. I need only to look out a window when people are talking around me to see the desolation and the isolation that come with my condition.
I live in this vibrant city because deafness propels me to go outside of my comfort zone again and again. Because I do not want to be an abnormal person, I strive to be an exceptional person. Because I do not want to be downtrodden, I try to climb higher and further than others. I don't look at it as competition so much as compensation.
This hearing loss, whether permanent or temporary, is a strong wake-up call. I need to get back in touch with the Deaf community and focus on sign language. I've returned to writing a novel about the Deaf in Portland. And I am preparing for what may well be inevitable, a cochlear implant.
It may be overly dramatic, but I've always feared becoming a machine in this way. On the outside, a cochlear implant isn't much more noticeable than a hearing aid. A sound processor and microphone send signals to a dime sized internal processor placed just inside the ear. This internal processor is connected with several millimeter-thick wires inserted directly into the cochlea, which send sound signals directly to the brain.
I've been told since I was eight years old that I would hear better with an implant. In the twenty years since, my hearing has deteriorated more and the technology for the implant has improved dramatically. With an implant, I would hear much better than I've ever heard in my life.
So what stops me? (Well, the $50,000 price tag for one, but insurance should cover that.) What stops me is some deeper spiritual core that doesn't want to turn away from who I am, a Deaf man. I don't want my senses overrun with technology and computers. I don't want to be dependent on the subsidiary of a huge corporation. Ask many Deaf or otherwise disabled people what they would like and it's quite possible we'd all be in agreement. We simply want to be normal, endowed with the five senses that most have at birth. How nice it would be to have that breeziness that comes with the senses and the body's health being in intimate concord, a body so in tune that it forgets its limitations and mortality.
I already have a machine that helps me hear. I already have metal in my ear, a tiny wire that holds my eardrum in place, and which has done its job since I was eight years old. Most importantly, I have realized that finding my true potential lies in both an inner and outer world. I will always have that inner world, but to really share my abilities with the world at large, I will always be dependent on the wonders of modern technology.
posted by Franz K at 9:04 AM
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