Gaining and Losing Senses

(Enunciated by Nimue, scribed by James)

It’s a commonly held belief that if you lose a sense others will improve to compensate. Your mileage may vary, but this is my experience so far…

My hearing has always been superb. This means that it’s quite useful right now for adding information. I’ve always been in the habit of paying attention to sounds around me. This is an information source I am used to using. It hasn’t improved noticeably, I’m just making good use of what I’ve got.

My spatial awareness has always been a bit crap. However, right now a sense of space is a helpful way to navigate. I’m slowly learning where things are in the spaces around me. It’s a slog. I have not acquired any natural talent for spatial awareness. What I do have is a huge incentive to try and learn to do better.

I’m quite a tactile person, there are things I can do by touch. I can identify a lot of my own clothing that way for a start. Again, there have been no changes to my senses here. There is a shift in my priorities. I’m exploring how to use touch and skin sensation to feel more present in the world, hoping to compensate for how loss of vision has felt alienating. that’s a work in progress, and if there’s anything interesting I’ll come back on that.

This all aligns with broader experiences. I don’t really believe in talent. Natural gifts are few and far between. My hearing is good, and some of that is a body issue, but some of it is a consequence of years of paying attention to sound. I can improve my spatial knowledge. I can figure out ways to use the senses I have. Anyone who is down a sense has a lot of motivation to put in the work, however deliberately. Our brains adapt, although we might not always be conscious of what they’re doing. I don’t believe that anyone gets an upgrade on some other sense when one goes wrong. I’m pretty confident that deliberately working with what you’ve got gets the most done, but there might be room for unconscious brain adaptation. Its still work, even if we don’t notice ourselves doing it.

Thank you to Christopher Blackwell for the prompt.