by Maureen Schulz

[Editor's Note: Maureen is a Bay View Chapter and CLUA member. We invite you to share your favorite "reasons". We'll print a list in a future issue; just
send them to me at editor@ccbnet.org.]

1. It gives me immediate access to the unusual, and therefore, more appreciation at times of what is beyond ordinary, in myself and each person.

2. Since I don't drive, I will never have to waste time finding a parking spot, get a ticket, be caught speeding, spend money on maintaining/buying/selling/going
into debt over a vehicle, and the price of gasoline will never ever worry me. I never have to say: "I'm not drinking today, I'm driving."

3. I do not ever have to look at graphics, into mirrors, or at any other visual nonsense.

4. I could spend hours, days, in conversation/contemplation, or listening to music, and love it, and never ever get tired of or distracted from that.

5. I know and appreciate the energy behind people's words, as well as that behind their silence, and I love reading energy in people's voices and in how
they talk.

6. I am in great company, as justice, faith, love are, all blind.

7. Blindness is a perfect excuse for anything I don't want to do.

8. Since I am often seen as either a genius or an idiot, I can sneak off and be myself quietly, below the radar, and not be noticed.

9. I can escape into my inner self and not care about anything else.

10. I appreciate that phone and email are great equalizers, no sight required.

11. I often enjoy the company of other blind/partially sighted people, because I know and appreciate, in detail, the kind of outer and inner work they
had to do, to be where they are in life.

12. Should a truly Totalitarian State ever come, I can use Braille as my medium to say whatever I want to say.

13. I get to thoroughly enjoy myself when I happen to be in a group of sighted people, and all the lights go out.