The illusion and fear of sight

One day, someone we know thought about demystifying an old saying: “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”.

He usually mocks it stating that the actual saying should be “In the land of the blind, you don’t need an eye to be king – you just have to say that you have one and that the others don’t know because they are blind".

We agree that questioning this old saying is nothing new. If I am not mistaken, H.G. Wells wrote a short-story about an unfortunate mountaineer who fell into a vast precipice in the deep Ecuador, somewhere between Cotopaxi and Chimborazo and its everlasting snow and volcanoes. This place was called “The Country of the Blind”.

Saved by the blind people, the only inhabitants in this gloomy chasm, his misery could only be measured by the fallen illusion that he could have become king, had the people not decided to blind him as well, thus curing him from the illness that it is to SEE. Saramago’s “blindness” is not too different from this one.

Although they are two separate approaches, they are not contradictory. One of them refers to the importance of image, while the other one refers to the fear we sustain for those who know more than we do. One speaks of the illusion of sight. The other one speaks of the fear of sight. Many a time, fear and illusion walk hand in hand.

The truth is that the illusion we give of our selves must have a meaning and those who see more than we do should not fear admitting it.