Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Being Naive
Being Naive
Written by Sean on Tuesday, July 1, 1997
Recently a friend gave me some information about the different type of pain paraplegics feel, in zones that aren’t supposed to feel anything… I was so surprised. I learned another aspect of paraplegia I was unsuspecting of. And then I started thinking back to when I was a kid and of all the very naive and pre-conceived ideas I had then, thinking that there are probably many more to change. The more I learn about this, the more I realize there is to learn.
Journey down memory lane… My first impression of paralysis was that your legs were stuck in one position, hard as wood, bent and you couldn’t move them… I didn’t know about the usual loss of feeling. Later I realized that you could indeed move the legs, just had no control over them. Little things learned here and there. Another big realization was incontinence… For some reason I thought that *all* paras used in-dwelling catheters. Learned later that they avoid that as much as possible.
I am glad of my learning’s. I dislike being ignorant. I think that knowledge of what we want to be, or feel we are is a sine qua non condition for us to even start considering *doing it*.
Which leads me to another topic… I have talked to many people on IRC lately, and have told them that I would not consider staging an accident to receive an SCI. But you are a self-professed wannabe they tell me… Yes, I am. I want to be paraplegic, I feel it’s me, more than my walking self. *However*, I also know and realize that being paraplegic would probably not address whatever causes me to feel the way I do.
Not that the causes are something to be cured, but I don’t feel that actually being paralyzed would make me happier. It’s only a delusion. We think it would change our world… But a change towards happiness has to come from within, not from outside physical conditions. That’s why I content myself to use the chair.
Of course, if you are an amputee wannabe, then it is much more difficult to go out as one. But I beg you to reconsider any plans to blow your leg(s) off. As I said recently here, the desires aren’t self destructive in themselves, but pursuing them and actually acting on them is definitely self destructive.
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