Compensation

Some who do not see with their eyes are able to find their way indoors and outdoors, up and down stairs, by detecting sound echoes. That is called echolocation. It is an impressive skill most people do not have. So who are handicap: those who can’t see or those who can’t echolocate? Let us we apply what Einstein tells us to our sensory systems: auditory, gustatory, interoception, olfactory, proprioception, tactile, vestibular, visual. It’s all a matter of relativity. So our standard notion of who is disabled and who isn’t has been quite screwed.

Most would call that compensation–the standard explanation to explain (away) talents. Are we able to talk or make a sentence about Stephen Hawking without the word despite? “He is the brilliant physicist of modern times despite his ALD (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).”

Are we able to think of Andrea Bocelli and hear him without the word despite? “Céline Dion says if God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli despite him being blind.”

That despite reduces the person of Stephen Hawking as much as it reduces the person of Andrea Bocelli. By interpreting gifts as compensation we miss bundles of treasures presented to us.