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The Life-Changing Joy of Connection
Day 35, Saturday 21st April 2018
“Thank you for giving me back my hearing” — Me, yesterday.
The truly extraordinary nature of this statement took quite some time to permeate through my mind, into my body and my feelings. Hearing is not something we gain, if anything, it’s inevitable that we lose it, as age-related hearing loss is a creeping spectre as our lives march onwards.
Hearing is pivotal for engaging with the world. Without it, we’re alone, shut off from everybody and everything. Although we can see them talking and communicating, they’re doing so in a mute, unintelligible garble that won’t cross the boundary between noise and brain, into language. It’s a bubble-like existence where daydreaming and ostracised frustrations become normal as social inclusion becomes a rare occurrence.
Conversely, being given hearing back is an amazing experience worthy of every superlative known to man. Have you ever seen a video of someone having their cochlear implant switched on for the first time? YouTube is full of them, and they’ll make you cry. These people have profound hearing losses or may have been deaf from birth and are now having sounds tapped straight into their inner ear. You’ll see unbounded tears joy envelop everyone involved, as these amazing humans realise that they can actually…
