Tale of The Blinded Man

by Ron Livesay

There once was a man who began to be very frustrated by his failing eyesight. At one time, he had perfect vision, but in recent months, things had started to appear more and more blurred. Some of his friends tried very hard to convince him to see an eye doctor, but he listened instead to another group of so-called "friends" who convinced him that eye doctors didn't know anything, and that the real answer was to be found inside of each individual.

He tried a number of medications, salves, and ointments recommended by his friends, but none of these things did any good at all. His eyes grew steadily worse until he was all but blind. As his eyes grew worse, so did his frustration level. He finally became desperate, but still he refused to see an eye doctor. By now he had become even more convinced that no eye doctor could possibly know the answer.

In his desperation, he concocted a mixture of several salves and ointments and applied it to his eyes. The sting was intense, but he hoped the pain would be worth it when his vision was restored. To his great disappointment and dismay, his eyes not only did not improve, they got much worse, and he finally just closed his eyes and assumed he was totally blind.

His blindness at first resulted in rage. He was especially angry with all of the eye doctors who had not helped him, even though he had never really sought their help. However, his rage eventually went away and was replaced by a relative degree of comfort in his situation. All the while, he refused to open his eyes, because he "knew" he would not be able to see, even if he did open them.

He soon developed a very interesting view of life. He concluded that being unable to see was a great way to live. He further concluded that since he could not see, he was now an expert on vision. Since he was unable to see, obviously no one else could see, either. As a matter of fact, since he had not seen an eye doctor recently, he was no longer sure if such a thing as an eye doctor even existed. Since he didn't know, obviously no one else could know, either.

Even though he once could see, he seemed to forget that fact, and he dismissed all efforts to convince him that vision was a reality, because he based all of his views on his own recent experiences. None of the people trying to convince him that they could see knew what they were talking about. How could they possibly know anything that he didn't know? Because of his unwise choices and flawed thinking, he closed his eyes, steadfastly refused to open them, and spent the rest of his life as a blind man, believing that everyone else was blind, as well.