Andrew Leland
speaker
79 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2023
last heard Jul 2023
Andrew Leland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Hi, I'm Andrew Leland.
I'm blind, and this is a TED Talk about blindness, which is confusing for me and for you, because just by watching me right now, you can probably tell I'm not blind.
For example, I can tell that on this plate right here, there are five slices of pear arranged in a smiley face.
Or that that is a photograph of a very sad hippo.
So you might be wondering, if I can see all that, why am I talking about blindness?
Okay, so I'm going blind.
I don't know exactly when.
As a teenager, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, which is a degenerative retinal condition.
In my teens and early 20s, I only noticed it at night.
Then in my early 30s, my peripheral vision started to deteriorate.
Right now, I have central vision, but I'm seeing the world through a pretty narrow porthole.
So even though I can see these pears and that hippo, I'm legally blind.
I have severe tunnel vision, but it doesn't look like a tunnel because your brain adapts really quickly to whatever you see.
Like if the frame of the movie you're watching starts to shrink to a much smaller size, at first you'll be annoyed.
This sucks, you might say to yourself.
I don't like watching this movie on this tiny screen.
Then your complaints will soften and disappear, and your brain will adapt to the new normal.
Like the first time you watch a movie on your cell phone, it'll be annoyingly small at first, and then you just get used to it.
So every time I lose another chunk of vision, at first I feel super extra blind, sometimes scared or claustrophobic.
My world is shrinking.
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