Community

John Gumperz, a sociolinguist at Berkeley, defined a speech community as “any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interactions by means of a shared language system and set off from other such aggregates.” However, when I began to lose my hearing a year and a half ago, I quickly came to the realization that this shared language system does not just define a “speech community,” but rather is the very basis of any community.

A community could be thought of as a group of people. But while having crowds of people always surrounding you is all well and good, if there is no true connection being made with these people, then there is really no communal feeling, at all. Connections are made through the give and take of conversation—not just talking at one person and a person talking back at the person. I saw, as my hearing decreased, that I felt that I was moving away from all of the people around me. They were still present, but not really existing on the same wavelength as I was.

I had many experiences where I’d go out to a bar on a Saturday night with friends. I would sit with them, and (force myself to) laugh when everyone else was laughing. I thought of a study was recently done, which investigated why large groups of monkeys would get together, and essentially start to hyperventilate together. It turned out that this monkey hyperventilation was actually their form of laughing, and the group laughs created cohesion. Similarly, while I felt that everyone was getting closer, through shared laughs and shared stories, I began to feel more and more alienated with each outing.

In retrospect, I realize it is no surprise where I turned—poker. There is a definite community to poker, regardless of how shallow that community might be. And whereas the qualifications for admission to a country club might be wealth and high social standing, the sole qualification for admissions to a poker community is money, plain and simple. If you have the money, you are welcomed with open arms to the table.

Moreover, I think that one of the appeals of the poker community, aside from their (low) admission standards, was the form of communication. While there is always banter going on at a poker table, the majority of the “communication” is done through wagering. While someone might say something to induce a bluff, the majority of the signals can be culled from facial expressions and wagers. This provides an optimal situation for someone who is hard of hearing, since there is very little auditory communication going on.

Eventually, I realized that the cohesion I sought in the poker community simply wasn’t there, no matter how often I played, or how much of a “regular” I was. It was all about the money, and nothing else. I came to the realization that the allures of poker were superfluous, and there was not a real community there. I think this has become an important thing to bear in mind, as I find myself struggling in a lot of environments.

My stepdad has a sign behind his desk that reads, “Nothing is ever easy.” It is not a cute cliché or metaphor; it is just stark and true. I think that the only successful way to get through something like a hearing loss is to accept this maxim. There are no shortcuts, or easy ways out. It is hard, and it will always be hard. There is a price to pay for trying to bypass the difficulties. Nothing is ever easy.

This Isn't Me

“This Isn’t Me”
or
‘On the Non-Objectivity of People’

“This isn’t me!” I want to scream out to the dining hall table, as I sit there, silently.

I am a social person. This is what I know, or what I tell myself. It is what I consider myself to be. But ask anyone who’s met me since I lost a chunk of my hearing, and they’ll tell you quite a different tale.

As I sit at the dining hall table, it’s not that I don’t want to chat away with the people, or that I’d rather be sulking in a corner by myself. Rather, I plain and simply cannot understand the words that are being spoken. This skill is, to say the least, a pre-requisite for participation in a conversation.

It has now been a week and a half of this. I have had some conversations, with individuals, when we happen to be in a quiet environment. But it goes even further.

I was thinking to myself this morning that, despite my lack of communication, I don’t really want to be friends with most of these people anyway. Not many people have struck me as the types I’d really want to pursue a friendship with. Except for the people I’ve had conversations with. Most of these people struck me as people I could enjoy being friends with.

And then it struck me:

There is no such thing as “types of people.” I have not been social to most people, so why should I expect them to come across as friendly to me. It is not that they are “unfriendly types,” but rather that in relation to me, this is how they act.

I suppose I could make some sort of analogy to the Uncertainty Principle here, in terms of the fact that the observer necessarily affects that which is being observed. In other words, I have no idea what kind of people most of the other kids are. They come across a certain way to me, but there is no way to know if this is how they normally are, or if they are this way because this is how they treat the asocial version of me.

But on the other hand, they aren’t getting to know me. “This isn’t me!” I want to say. But then again, if it’s not me, then who is it?

620 Days in the Making

It’s taken a long time to write this post—620 days to be precise. (Or, if you’re a fan of Rent, 892,800 minutes.) I lost my hearing, for good, on February 17, 2006. Before then, for the past few years, I’d experienced temporary spells where I’d lose my hearing for 12 hours or so, and then, with a dose of steroids, it would come back perfectly. This time, however, it did not come back…

For about 18 months I have been living in a world that few have ever imagined or glimpsed. It is not quite as extreme as the world of outerspace, or the world of the deep sea, although there are certainly times when it seems like I am in these worlds. It has been isolating, scary, frustrating and thought-provoking. Further, it has taught me a great deal about myself, about friends and “friends,” and about how our society treats people with disabilities. More than that, however, it has forced me to look at life in a whole new way.

Perhaps most unique is that I’ve lived most of my life—22 years of it—in the hearing world. While I had had my host of medical problems, I had never had anything which so completely affected my every day existence. I had gone to normal public schools as a child, had attended an Ivy League college, and had all the fun in the world. I knew that I would never be a Navy Pilot, nor a pitcher for the Mets—well, maybe after this season, they could use me—but these things never affected my day-to-day activities.

But the reality is, within my life, there were very few restrictions. Sometimes situations were more difficult, and I know that it was only because I put out 150% that I got through some of them. Still, though, they were do-able, somehow. They were still within the realm of possibilities.

However, this September, I was due to go off to London for graduate school. As the time came closer, I realized that it was going to be next-to-impossible to deal with certain situations while abroad; I had no choice but to throw in the towel. There came a certain point where I realized that, no matter how “winning” my attitude was, or how optimistic I wanted to be, this was just not a possibility, at least for the time being.

It was strange; it was the first time I had to tell myself no, that I cannot do something. It was plain and simple, cut and dry, this was not an option. Before this, everything had been an option, tough as it might be. As Americans, we are raised with an inherent belief that the only limits we have are those we put on ourselves. If you just put enough elbow grease into it, and will it hard enough, it will happen. This time, even with all of the elbow grease and will in the world, it just won’t.

Since this revelation, I have started to accept that I am now part of this crazy world, of those who start to lose their hearing late in life. Neither firmly planted in the deaf world, nor the hearing world, they are forced to carve a niche for themselves. In just the few months since I’ve started fully exploring this world, I have discovered mounds of both inspiration and frustration.

I hope, through this blog, to be able to share some of those experiences with the rest of the world. If you are deaf, or hard-of-hearing like me, I hope that this will serve as a source of hope, and information. If you are hearing, then I hope that this will be enlightening, as it will plumb the depths of deafness, just like Jacque Cousteau and his little submarine. So hang on, it will be a bumpy voyage, but hopefully with some breathtaking views, too.