Introduction
John M. Hull's "Touching the Rock" is a profound and intimate exploration of blindness, chronicling the author's journey as he loses his sight in adulthood. Hull, an Australian-born theologian, became fully blind at the age of 45 after a series of medical complications. Between 1983 and 1986, he recorded his experiences on cassette tapes, providing a raw and honest account of his transition into a world of darkness.
This book offers readers a unique opportunity to understand blindness from the perspective of someone who has lived in both the sighted and unsighted worlds. Hull's reflections are not just personal anecdotes but also philosophical insights into the nature of perception, human experience, and the meaning of life.
The Fading of Faces
One of the most striking aspects of Hull's experience is how quickly the visual memories of faces begin to fade after losing sight. Surprisingly, he found that he could remember the faces of people he hadn't seen since becoming blind better than those closest to him – his wife, children, and colleagues.
For Hull, new memories formed after blindness seemed to overwrite the visual recollections of his immediate family. He could only recall their appearances by visualizing specific photographs, which led to some peculiar realizations. For instance, he wondered if he would always remember his wife, Marilyn, as a young woman, or his daughter Imogene as a seven-year-old child.
This fading of faces extended to Hull's own appearance as well. Blindness began to distort his experience of aging and gradually shifted his self-image altogether. In the early years of his blindness, Hull found himself projecting imagined images onto people he met, especially women. However, as time passed, he increasingly focused on the human voice as a primary indicator of identity.
The World of Sound
For the sighted, it's challenging to imagine a world of complete darkness. However, Hull's account reveals how the absence of sight heightens other senses, particularly hearing. His descriptions of everyday experiences, like traveling on the London Underground, showcase the rich auditory landscape that the blind navigate.
Hull could distinguish the subtle sounds of train wheels on rails, engines, and brakes. He noticed how the cycle of movement and human activity repeated between stops as people entered and exited the automatic doors at each station. Even the sound of the wind changed depending on whether the train was leaving or approaching a platform.
Natural elements like rain took on new significance in Hull's world. From inside his house, he could locate the fence bordering his property by listening to the rainfall. He could distinguish between the louder splashes in puddles on the concrete path and the water rushing into the flooded gutter along the street.
However, Hull also realized that silence meant the disappearance of the world for a blind person. Without sound, there was no way to perceive activity or presence. This led him to philosophical reflections on the nature of sound versus sight. For instance, he noted that even with closed eyes, sighted people know there are still things to be seen. But in the absence of sound, there likely isn't anything to hear.
As a religious educator, Hull also pondered the divine nature of sound. He observed that in many religions, God is heard rather than seen, drawing parallels between the mysterious nature of sound and the presence of the divine.
Independence and Dependence
Contrary to common perceptions, Hull's experience reveals that blind people can navigate the world with remarkable independence. Using a white cane not as a walking stick but as a tool of perception, the blind gather information about their environment through the soles of their feet and the tip of the cane.
Hull's sense of space improved dramatically after losing his sight. He developed the ability to sense approaching obstacles through echolocation – the skill of locating objects by listening to echoes in the environment. During a visit to Iona Abbey, he was able to create a mental map of various routes within the complex, showcasing the adaptability of the human mind in the absence of sight.
However, Hull also experienced the duality of independence and dependence that comes with blindness. While he could navigate spaces alone given time and opportunity, the presence of well-meaning sighted people often hindered his independence. When guided by others, blind individuals lose the chance to fully engage their senses and develop their own understanding of the space around them.
This dependence on sighted individuals sometimes led to uncomfortable situations. Hull recounts an incident where a woman at a social event forcibly tried to seat him, refusing to let him use his preferred method of guidance. Such experiences highlighted the importance of empathy and understanding from sighted individuals in allowing blind people to maintain their agency.
Changing Perceptions of Food and Sex
Hull's transition to blindness revealed fascinating insights into how visual stimuli influence human desires and experiences. One area where this became particularly evident was in his relationship with food.
For sighted individuals, the mere sight of food can trigger hunger due to the lifelong conditioning that associates desires with visual images. The blind, however, experience a dissociation between desire and image. While they can anticipate food through smell, this often isn't as satisfying as seeing what food looks like. Hull found that blindness caused him to lose interest in food, even when he felt hungry. Being told what was being served was often insufficient to stimulate his appetite.
A similar loss of desire occurred in Hull's experience of sex. While he still experienced sexual urges, he found that the scent or voice of a partner was not enough to provoke genuine sexual excitement. Without visual cues, he had to relearn how to experience and enjoy sexual intimacy, a process that took time and adjustment.
These experiences highlight how deeply ingrained visual stimuli are in human desires and behaviors, and how losing sight necessitates a fundamental shift in how one interacts with the world.
Dreams and Nightmares
Between 1983 and 1986, Hull experienced a period of intense dreams and nightmares. Unlike his waking life of darkness, these dreams often unfolded in vibrant colors, featuring images from his memories and revealing his deepest anxieties about blindness, particularly in relation to his role as a father and husband.
One particularly poignant dream involved making love to his wife in a pub before being told that she and their daughter had been in an accident. This nightmare revealed Hull's anxiety about not being able to reach his family members in times of emergency and his fear that blindness would cause him to lose his wife.
These dreams also reflected the challenges Hull faced as a blind parent, especially with children born during his transition to blindness. His son Thomas, for instance, was too young to understand blindness initially. Hull found himself avoiding explaining his condition to Thomas out of fear that it would negatively affect their relationship. However, when Thomas eventually learned about his father's blindness, it didn't change his opinion of his father at all.
These nightmares and anxieties highlight the emotional toll of adjusting to blindness, particularly in the context of family relationships. They reveal the deep-seated fears and insecurities that Hull had to grapple with as he learned to navigate his new reality.
Social Challenges
One of the most significant challenges Hull faced was in the realm of social interactions. As someone who lost his sight as an adult, he primarily socialized with sighted people, which often led to feelings of marginalization due to misconceptions about blindness or failed social interactions.
Hull found that he often became a burden to those he engaged with, or would get stuck talking to a single conversation partner in group settings. To overcome this, he developed techniques to change conversation partners and take initiative at social gatherings. For example, he would ask his current conversation partner if they saw anyone they knew and then request an introduction, allowing him to meet new people and avoid becoming socially isolated.
However, many of the people Hull met had never interacted with a blind person before. This meant he often had to "train" sighted individuals on how to interact with him, giving cheerful but direct instructions. Sometimes, these interactions led to embarrassing misunderstandings, such as when a woman misinterpreted his instructions and led him to accidentally touch another person instead of a chair.
Hull had to become comfortable with demanding things from people, which was challenging but necessary to avoid complete passivity and social marginalization. These experiences highlight the additional social labor that blind individuals often have to perform in order to navigate a world designed for the sighted.
Finding Meaning in Blindness
Hull's journey with blindness was not without its struggles. He experienced periods of depression, particularly during a visit to Australia in 1984 where he had to navigate a new environment and introduce himself as a blind person to family members he hadn't seen since losing his sight. The inability to share visual experiences of travel with his children was especially painful.
However, as time passed, Hull began to consider the positive aspects of blindness. He questioned whether it might be perceived as a paradoxical gift, noting how some individuals, like the German philosopher Franz Brentano, achieved great creative feats after losing their sight.
Hull started to see himself not as a blind person, but as a "whole-body-seer." He came to understand that blind individuals must see with their entire body, potentially experiencing the human condition more directly than those with sight. This shift in perspective allowed him to find new meaning in his experience of blindness.
While he continued to have days of depression due to feeling misunderstood or marginalized, Hull ultimately realized that finding meaning in life was more important than being happy. His roles as a religious educator, member of various religious communities, and as a family man gave his life a purpose that transcended the challenges of blindness.
Conclusion: Blindness as a Way of Seeing
In the end, Hull came to view blindness not as a disability to be overcome, but as a unique and valuable way of experiencing the world. While he didn't choose to become blind, he found that even this profound change in his life became meaningful.
Hull's account goes beyond stories of triumph over adversity. Instead, it offers a nuanced exploration of the daily lived experience of blindness and its implications for our understanding of perception and human existence. By illuminating how the loss of sight precipitates a profound shift in one's engagement with the world, Hull proposes that blindness can be seen as a precious way of seeing the world.
"Touching the Rock" invites readers to reconsider their assumptions about blindness and perception. It challenges us to appreciate the diversity of human experience and the many ways in which we can engage with and understand our world. Through Hull's honest and introspective account, we gain not just insight into the experience of blindness, but also a deeper appreciation for the complexity and richness of human consciousness.
Hull's journey from grief and loss to finding new meaning and ways of experiencing the world serves as a powerful testament to human resilience and adaptability. It reminds us that even in the face of profound change and challenge, it is possible to find new perspectives, new ways of engaging with the world, and ultimately, new sources of meaning and fulfillment.
As we reflect on Hull's experiences, we are invited to consider our own perceptions and assumptions about the world around us. How much of our understanding is shaped by sight? What might we gain by paying more attention to our other senses? And how can we cultivate greater empathy and understanding for those whose experiences of the world differ from our own?
"Touching the Rock" is more than just a memoir of blindness. It is a philosophical exploration of perception, consciousness, and the human experience. It challenges us to look beyond the surface of things, to listen more deeply, and to touch the world around us with greater sensitivity and awareness. In doing so, it offers not just insight into the experience of blindness, but a new way of seeing the world for all of us.