Pre-Wired

Even with the CI, I keep running into the differences that I feel between my interests/pastimes and hearing culture. A lot of this might be more personality than deafness-related, but the fact is that being deaf has shaped my personality in one way or another. And even now that I'm hearing more, those deep-engrained preferences are still just there. They're not good or bad; they just are.

Take, for instance, music. I still remember seeing a deaf friend not long after I got the CI and having her tell me that she'd come to appreciate music more since getting her own CIs, but that she still wouldn't call music an active pleasure in her life. She didn't mind it if it was on, could even enjoy it sometimes, but she didn't actively seek it out. "I wouldn't waste the energy to get up and walk across the room and turn the stereo on, if you know what I mean," was what she told me. "Having it be quiet is fine by me, and honestly a lot of the time I prefer the silence." I remember having that conversation (it was about a year ago) while I was still in more flux between the deaf and the hearing worlds, still not quite knowing what would be possible for me with the CI or how it would change me. What! No! Music is cool! It has rhythm and pitch and complexity and whatever else - and I can hear it now! This is finally something to share with my hearing friends!

A year later, I think I've learned not to force things. I've ended up at a similar place as my friend. I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience music in my life, and when I find it playing in the background I can appreciate it much more than I used to, but... that's it. My brain hasn't made enough sense of it to be in awe, or addicted, or whatever hearing people feel when they listen to a song they like. Music isn't at the core of my being, and never will be. It's a roadside attraction when I happen to pass it by, but not something I pursue. I realize that some hearing friends might read this and find it sad, or pity me for missing out, but I don't feel any of those things. There might have been a point, immediately post-CI, where I was anxious for the device to do for and instill everything in me, when I would have viewed this relative apathy as a failure. But it's not. It's something like a hearing sighted person who isn't all that into art, but who will go to a museum from time to time with friends, nod appreciatively, and then leave. And I know several hearing people who are that way about music - my parents, for instance. I never had a very musical household growing up, my sister excluded. My parents like music when it tumbles into their lives. But they don't go out of their way for it. And neither, it turns out, do I.

This past weekend I was roadtripping back from an event with some teammates when they jacked someone's iPhone into the car, worked their way through a playlist of songs (what kinds of songs? I wish I could say), and all sang along for a good hour or so. The volume was amped up, the car was shaking, I was in the front passenger seat listening to them sing. There might have been a time in which a scene like that would have left me browbeating myself, feeling miserable, drowning in my own isolation. Obviously I couldn't sing along. I didn't know what song it was. I hardly knew anything about the music at all, save that I could hear it. Our worlds were leagues apart. Theirs - the world of music videos, of concerts, of karaoke, of singalongs. Mine - of thoughts, books, visual culture, and none of those auditory-based things. But the fact that I could be there with them, hearing if not quite sharing in the same experience or feelings, but still tapping somewhat vicariously into their car-ride singalong, was enough. They got something more complex out of the music than I did, but my own thoughts did get the opportunity to fly off unhindered. I found myself looking at that space between us, understanding what it was, and feeling more at peace with it than ever before. Maybe part of me even enjoyed it. To each his own.

And, honestly, this example sums up something I've been feeling lately - that, even though I am not a hearing person and cannot (or do not care to) participate in all of the facets of hearing culture, my own experience is so unique that I cannot dismiss it. This isn't a justification for exclusion or insensitivity, nor is it allotting certain things to the hearing that the deaf cannot or should not do. It's more of a commentary on myself, and on discovering personal preferences. My deafness has shaped me, for one end or another. Now that I can hear music and experience other things, I take the taste of it, smile, and feel appreciative. Then I realize even more strongly what I truly do love to do - for myself. Not for the sake of fitting in, but for my own abilities and passions, and for no other reason.