Now, I’m not part of the deaf community in any real way (don’t know any deaf people, and only a few who know sign, but I used to know the alphabet), but im badly near-sighted. Like, I didn’t realize that everyone else could see individual leaves on trees instead of vague green blobs where the canopy was. And birds just disappeared into them. The first time I saw a Monet painting, and impressionist art in general, while I still appreciated the beauty my first thought was, “Ah, a painting of the world as seen by a near-sighted person.” That said, I’m very happy to wear glasses and see a truer representation of what the rest of the world sees rather than walking through life in an impressionistic world.

So, for me, I can’t see why anyone would choose to perceive less of the world than they could. If I could further augment my senses in a convenient manner, I would. If my parents had had to choose between some surgery and me being isolated from so much of the world, I’d ask for the surgery if I could.