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TED Health

Blindness isn't a tragic binary β€” it's a rich spectrum | Andrew Leland

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 β€’ 1.5K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 17 October 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When does vision loss become blindness? Writer, audio producer and editor Andrew Leland explains how his gradual loss of vision revealed a paradoxical truth about blindness β€” and shows why it might have implications for how all of us see the world.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Ted Audio Collective

0:07.0

It's Ted Health, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerliter.

0:19.0

What does it mean to be blind?

0:22.0

If you're envisioning a world of total darkness, you're not alone, but you're also not entirely

0:30.0

For the past 20 years, writer Andrew Leland has been on a journey from sight to blindness

0:36.0

due to a degenerative condition affecting his retinas.

0:40.0

In his 2021 Ted Studio talk, he challenges our assumptions about what blindness truly is

0:48.0

and invites us to explore its complexities beyond the simple binary of sight or no sight.

0:55.0

Join me on this enlightening journey through the eyes of someone who's losing their vision

1:00.0

while gaining new perspectives.

1:12.0

Hey listener, a quick favor.

1:14.0

We are conducting an audience survey and we'd be really grateful if you could take just a few minutes to respond.

1:19.0

Please visit survey.prx.org slash health to take the survey today.

1:26.0

That's survey.prx.org slash health.

1:29.0

Thanks.

1:30.0

A white man with glasses sits at a marble table next to a plate of sliced pears.

1:35.0

Hi, I'm Andrew Leland.

1:37.0

I'm blind and this is a Ted talk about blindness which is confusing for me and for you

1:42.0

because just by watching me right now you can probably tell I'm not blind.

1:46.0

For example, I can tell that on this plate right here there are five slices of pear arranged in a smiley face

1:52.0

or that a framed photo hangs on the wall behind him as a photograph of a very sad hippo.

1:58.0

So you might be wondering if I can see all that, why am I talking about blindness?

...

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