The main line of growing up: creating a clear sky

Jul 27, 2022

Objectively speaking, the clear sky has always existed without needing to be created. But creating a clear sky has become the main line of my life.

"Creating a clear sky" is a false proposition for most people. Clear skies are always there. It exists without creating it. Even if the dark clouds cover the sky, it still exists, but it is only covered by the dark clouds. Since it exists, why create it?

Even so, "creating a clear sky" is the main thread of my life. Of course, "creating a clear sky for thousands of miles" is just a statement that has been modified by literature, and it only means constantly broadening one's horizons and increasing knowledge and experience in all aspects. Make yourself able to see far and wide, and capture a wide range. I know that not everyone has such requirements and expectations of themselves. Why am I so obsessed with broadening my horizons and contacts? I think it has something to do with my own personal characteristics and life circumstances.

The fuse was an injury experience in two small talk

My own characteristics, the most notable one, can be said to be the visual impairment that has accompanied me since I was a child. Since it is like this from birth, it should be very accustomed to it. But I was very conflicted about my vision impairment. On the one hand, it is very accustomed to it, and there is no strange feeling at all. On the other hand, I was unwilling to accept the inconvenience and limitations it brought me for a long time. When I was studying, I worked hard to get excellent grades and to enter a higher school. Most of my strong professionalism after graduation was a kind of rebellion against my visual impairment, which was a constraint on me.

I remember in my last year of college, I had two casual conversations with people, one with my roommate, and one with a physically disabled friend who happened to meet while eating alone in a restaurant. In the two conversations, I was invariably criticized for having very limited knowledge and experience because of my visual impairment. At the time I felt very uncomfortable. Whether they mean that I'm not trying hard enough to expand my knowledge, or that I'm not destined to be very broad because of the limitations of my visual impairment, I'm going to be very hurt. It is because of those two injuries that inspired me to constantly try my best to expand my knowledge and experience. Later, I experienced a lot and found that broadening my knowledge and experience really has its benefits. The expansion of knowledge and experience will open up one's mind and improve the acceptance of people and things, so that they will not be troubled by the trivial matters of sesame and mung bean. But even if I tried my best to expand my knowledge and experience, the constraints of the objective environment were inevitable. I would like to list some of them below, hoping to bring about a little change in the general environment, so that latecomers like me who want to "create a clear sky" can walk a little easier.

Closure and Overprotection of Schools for the Blind

As mentioned in the previous article, Xinguang School is a boarding school. Students go home from school on Friday afternoons and return to their dorms on Sunday afternoons to prepare for school on Monday. Primary one to three secondary school students are not allowed to go out on weekdays. Only foreign students who were sent to mainstream schools after Secondary Three but still lived in Xinguang dormitory were allowed to go out. Near Xinguang School, there are only the distant wealthy villas and Pok Fu Lam Road, which is full of traffic. It's not hard to imagine that this is an environment far from the community. Coupled with the closed management of the school, the lives of Xinguang students can easily be limited to the two points and one line between home and school. And this "two points and one line" is only once a week, and they only stay in the same place on weekdays. For students living in this closed environment, where can their knowledge and experience be expansive?

The tendency of mainstream society to pay more attention to protection and less development to the visually impaired

The closure and overprotection of schools for the blind is just one factor limiting the broadening of the life experience of the visually impaired. In fact, the arrangement of schools for the blind is only a mirror image of the larger environment, the mainstream society. What makes it difficult for the visually impaired to broaden their horizons and life experience is the tendency of mainstream society to protect this group. Family members and friends who are close to the visually impaired, as well as the general public, the first thing that comes to mind when facing the visually impaired is to help them do this and that, and how to take care of them properly. Character development needs. I remember writing an article here to share my wish to travel alone. However, one of the citizens' message introduced me to apply for a charitable fund that sponsors trips for visually impaired people, and said that this fund can grant the expenses of traveling together for two people at one time, so that the caregivers can travel together. I saw it was really good and funny. I said I want to travel alone, and you want me to apply for a fund to sponsor the two of you! But after calming down later, she also understood the commenter, she was just used to the mainstream society's idea of visually impaired people. Don't mention this commenter I don't know, even my family would think I'm crazy if they knew I wanted to travel alone. I remember that in order to train myself to travel alone, I tried to go to places in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories that I had never been to, or to participate in activities, or to do things by myself. After my brother found out, he also enthusiastically told me to go somewhere in the future, even if I told him, he would drive me to pick me up. It is conceivable that the mainstream society's tendency to protect the visually impaired has such a powerful influence!

lifelong struggle

Facing the above constraints, it has always been my lifelong wish to broaden my horizons and broaden my life experience. This wish is something I think is worth pursuing no matter how difficult it is, no matter how hard it is. The injury experience in college inspired me to expand my knowledge, but it also had side effects to some extent. The most obvious is that I will unconsciously show disdain and contempt for those who have limited knowledge and have no intention of broadening their knowledge. Reflecting on this recently. Isn't one of the main purposes for me to expand my knowledge to broaden my mind and accept different people and things? Everyone is different, and there is no rule that everyone should broaden their knowledge and life experience. If some people think that they don't have to do this, and are happy by being content with two o'clock and one line every day, why not? But for me, facing all kinds of limitations and constraints, "creating clear skies" seems to be my lifelong struggle.