Words
All of life is about words. Words that hurt, words that heal, and words that are carelessly thrown away, leaving lasting scars and lingering forever. The problem is that words have meaning, and I'm not just talking about what Webster says.
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One: perception.
I have been deaf since I was 6. I lost 100% of my hearing overnight, which people assume must have been hugely traumatic. In truth, the trauma I've dealt with because of my deafness has had almost nothing to do with my actually being deaf; it's been the way people have reacted or chosen to treat me because of their perceptions.
I speak and read lips very well; I mostly make my way through the world with surprisingly little (outward) effort. However, there are always people who will interact with me in one way and then completely turn the interaction on its head once they know I'm deaf. I mean, WHY? I can still understand you just as well as I could 20 seconds ago. You don't suddenly need to start writing, or mouthing words as if your mouth were full of enormous ice cubes.
Perception. People have in their heads that deaf people can or cannot do ****, where **** is absolutely anything from "think" to "have sex." Or "drive," which is the subject of my favorite "super-educated people can be surprisingly dumb" story.
Two: hearing vs. listening
When I was 14, I had cochlear implant surgery. The surgery gave me some semblance of hearing, where I'd had none for 8 years. It was not "normal" hearing by any means; indeed, the mechanical nature of it meant that I had to retrain my brain to process a completely different kind of sound. This involved hour upon hour of audio-visual therapy. I cannot overstate how mind-numbingly boring that was. But I digress.
When I am wearing my cochlear implant processor, I cannot tune anything out. I don't have that ability. I hear EVERYTHING. It's a wall of sound, which may be a valid musical theory, but for my own sanity it's... not a good thing. A cough or sneeze, to me, is mind-blowingly loud. However, I also usually can only decipher about 25-30% of what I'm hearing; this applies to both environmental sound and speech. So it's a wall of mostly indecipherable sound. I think it's understandable that I often choose to leave my processor off... almost always when I'm alone, unless I'm listening to music. Almost always when I'm at home, since Tina can communicate with me other ways. I've often said that the only reason I even wear it is so hearing people can communicate with me.
I put FAR more effort into what you label as "hearing" than any hearing person I know - it's anything but passive for me. Which doesn't negate your excellent point at all... I'm just throwing a wrench in your works, I suppose. I'm an outlier.
I am, as many people in my lifetime have told me, an excellent listener. Many have noted, with amusement, that I am a better listener than any person they know with natural hearing.
(Is there a point to all this? I think I lost it in the bottom of that second glass of wine I just finished.)
I really do put a lot of effort into listening to people, because I think it's a lost art, and the only talent I seem to possess at any appreciable level.
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When he began it was a little difficult to understand him, but as he talked it became much easier. He spoke about the trials of being "different" or the perception that he was "retarded." By the end of his presentation almost the entire audience was in tears, simply because in very simple terms he had described how everyone made his life more difficult without ever intending to do so. As he observed, in many ways, his greatest obstacle was perception. He was right.
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