This afternoon my Entrepreneur Organization forum decided to go for Dialogue in The Dark. It’s an exhibition at Petrosains in KLCC where they put you into a series of pitch black rooms where you are completely without sight and have you do tasks… to simulate how it’s like being blind.
Here’s what we were tasked to do in the total darkness:
1) We made sculptures out of playdoh. Only using our sense of touch to be able to feel what we were making.
2) We wrote a poem on a piece of paper in total darkness. Something so difficult to do we’re sure we wrote completely all over the place on a single piece of paper.
3) We walked through mazes and different simulated environments (like KL city or Taman Negara) using our walking sticks and with our hands on each other shoulders.
4) We looked for things in total darkness. Something so difficult to do it took us a full 15 minutes to find 4 bags in a small space.
5) We learned to make tea and eat in total darkness. This one was tricky to me. Can you imagine pouring yourself a hot cup of tea in total darkness. I couldn’t really see what I was doing and I was so worried that I might scald myself with hot water.
The whole experience lasted some 2 and a half hours and this is how it felt. being blind for 2 and a half hours.
1) Lonely.
When there was silence and nobody was talking it felt very very lonely. Like only you were in the world and nobody else. The fortunate thing for us is because we went in a group we were always talking and the company helped the experience feel less lonely.
But when you were alone…. it felt very very lonely.
2) Helpless
I felt completely helpless. One time when making my sculpture with playdoh, I was making a ball out of it. I dropped it and it rolled somewhere I had no idea how to find it. No clue at all.
Sometimes we drop things in our daily life… some coins, a set of keys… anything at all. I’m bad at finding things when I drop them… i can’t imagine finding things without eyesight.
3) Frustrating
When you can’t find something it gets very frustrating too. In fact because you feel so helpless and because it takes so long to get anything done, I felt very very frustrated and impatient.
4) Not Self-Conscious
One thing I realized was that when we all couldn’t see, I didn’t really feel self-conscious and neither did my friends. We were in a big group of people and in the dark everyone was talking really loudly and making lots of jokes. We were even asked to do an impromptu radio ad and we all did it very enthusiastically without being shy of anything.
Then when the lights came on and everyone could see… all of us started being a lot more self-conscious of each other. Less talkative.. less willing to make a fool of ourselves.
5) Sad
I felt sad even doing things like eating. Part of the joy of eating is knowing what you’re eating. You know what you eat by smelling it, tasting, feeling it and seeing it. Taking sight out of the equation just makes the experience much less fulfilling.
Now apply that to everything else we can do. It’s depressing.
At the end of the whole event, the facilitators who were guiding us in the dark for the full two hours introduced themselves and told us their stories one by one. We thought they were walking around with us with night-vision goggles or something because they seemed to know their way around so well. But it turns out they were all blind or partially blind.
Their stories were heartbreaking to hear. Almost all of them had sight up until a few years ago. One was a student who was in college when she suddenly suffered from an eye disease that got her blind. Another was born blind and had lived all her life without eyesight.
Then the Founder & CEO of Dialogue in the Dark came into the dark room. He introduced himself and told of his story. How he was a consultant before this and was chasing wealth. Then in 2002 when he turned 40, he closed his first multi-million dollar deal. He was made… all his hard work was beginning to pay off.
A few weeks after closing that deal he began to feel pain in his eyes and a headache. He went to see a doctor and found out he had glaucoma. He spent the next 5 years going through 9 different surgeries fighting glaucoma. No longer fighting for wealth but fighting for his eyesight. That 5 years passed… and in 2007… he lost his eyesight. He was completely blind.
He took the first year of being blind very hard. He was angry at everything and blamed his wife and his family for his circumstance. But his family and wife stood by him. Then after a year he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring more awareness to eye diseases that could cause blindness which led him to eventually start Dialogue in the Dark.
Dialogue in the Dark is a Social Enterprise that donates all its profits to charity.
I walked away from that experience feeling grateful for what we have. Very often we chase wealth, we chase careers and we complain and fret about stress. The truth is most of us have the one thing we all sometimes forget to value… and that is good health. Sure I have some health problems and so does my wife, but my mom always says that as long as we can live our lives normally, that really isn’t a major health problem.
Thank you God for giving us all good health. I remember when Fighter was prematurely born and put in the incubator, one of the things the Doctor said premature babies risk was losing their eyesight. I remember praying to God throughout all his tests, praying that he would come out healthy.
Today we are blessed with a healthy child and I thank God for the health he has given all of us as a family.
Go check out Dialogue in the Dark at Petrosains KLCC if you have the time. It’s a thought-provoking experience.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space