Chapter 12 The tragedy of seeing the light again

SB, who had lost his eyesight for fifty-two years, realized that he had become a fool after he regained his sight. In December 1958, a 52-year-old man who lost his vision due to an eye disease 10 months after his birth underwent surgery at the Royal Eye Hospital in Birmingham, UK. As a result, he regained his sight.Within a month after the operation, SB became a popular news figure in London's "Daily Mail", which reported the news of SB's rapid vision recovery every day.At that time, everyone regarded SB's return to sight as a miracle and a great blessing. But in August 1960, more than a year after he regained his sight, SB passed away under extremely melancholy conditions.

The main cause of SB's depression and even death is the shattering of dreams.Most people take it for granted that restoring sight to the blind is a great boon, but the more likely outcome is tragedy, especially for a blind man who has lost his sight for fifty-two years.Because our perception mode of the real world is determined by the brain's early learning experience, once this perception mode is established, it is difficult to change. The tragedy of SB is that he established a perception model of the external world by means of touch and hearing. In this model, he lives well and is optimistic and confident; but once he uses a new vision to re-understand the world, he becomes a fool.

For example, he couldn't assess the height. Standing at the window about forty feet above the ground, he said he could touch the ground with his hands.When I saw the bus, I said that the height of the bus was much higher than the length.In terms of recognizing people, SB also admitted that he does not recognize other people's faces with his eyes, but recognizes their voices with his ears. Before the operation, SB was a happy blind man who made a living by mending leather shoes.But a few months after he regained his sight, he fell into depression, avoiding people, preferring to turn off the lights at night, sitting alone in a dark room, longing to return to the world he used to know, but Both the dream of light and the dream of darkness were shattered, and he found that he lost more than he gained!