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In Mann's "Reflections", I came across a fascinating passage about how a life is more embittered if one suffers from deafness than if one suffered from blindness, supplying anecdotes and reports. He even relates an episode in which blind men are seen tossing their false eyeballs at each other, all in good fun, like junior-high girls at a slumber party enjoying a pillow fight. It is part of a larger discussion on how war and crippling misfortune can have its upside, even its sublime side with the spiritual elevation of suffering and hardship. This discussion particularly captivated my attention, because I used to wonder whether I might do better if I could have my hearing surgically cut off, preferring the quiet. By contrast, the possibility of going blind always struck me as being the more horrifying.
I was tempted to type the long passage out for the benefit of the few readers I have, but I thought of those few old folks skimming the post, and it just did not seem worth it. Remember, I no longer feel the need to book-blog those books that are in my collection of 'rereadables', since I will be coming back to these passages again and again in the course of my reading routine, as long as time and life permit. Still, I imagine how such a post might have given birth to a fun little discussion back in the autumn of 2003, back when the world was young and I was like one of the cool kids, joking, flirting, having crushes, trying to sound smart and witty, dreaming a little that maybe my life could still work out yet.
I was tempted to type the long passage out for the benefit of the few readers I have, but I thought of those few old folks skimming the post, and it just did not seem worth it. Remember, I no longer feel the need to book-blog those books that are in my collection of 'rereadables', since I will be coming back to these passages again and again in the course of my reading routine, as long as time and life permit. Still, I imagine how such a post might have given birth to a fun little discussion back in the autumn of 2003, back when the world was young and I was like one of the cool kids, joking, flirting, having crushes, trying to sound smart and witty, dreaming a little that maybe my life could still work out yet.
