Empathy Visualized

This experiment done at a summer programme helped me understand the emotions of those unfortunate people who aren’t as blessed as us. We are lucky to be bestowed with the gift of sight, the gift of aural faculty, the gift of touch and a whole lot more.

In this very experiment, we were made to blindfold ourselves, and live in the dominion of blindness for a day.

Our only source of dependence was primarily on sound; the instructions provided by people walking around us and the furniture to aid us through our journey between classes. The tasks which were once a simple piece of work now became infuriatingly complex. For those who did not have the vital quality of patience, faced an awfully tough time in performing any work without snapping at anyone in front of them.

In the beginning, it felt surreal. We couldn't really label the emotions we were feeling. We were enclosed in a pit of darkness; hesitant to walk the next step, there was the anxiety of stepping into something or not stepping into anything at all, bumping into something or someone. At this point, all other sense organs, except our precious gift of sight, were highly stimulated.

As the day progressed, we reached a state where we felt immense feelings of isolation, fear, and desperation. We didn’t know what was happening!. Groans of frustration emitted from all of us. Cries for help from one another were begged for. We felt impotent, powerless and who knows what else and this was just for a mere eight hours.

The experiment was remarkably compelling and thought-provoking. We were delved into a faction of society where people have lived deprived of an important feature of the human sense organs.

Imagine not being able to see color! To have darkness all around us not just for a day but for eternity.

Those visually impaired people don’t have the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of color. They have to go through the hardships of life where they have to visualize scenes around them. They have to work each day without seeing the precious growth of life around them.

While at the end of the day we got to rip off the offending piece of cloth which blocked our sight, these dauntless, visually challenged individuals have to survive each day without having the gift.