The Day of Silence

The Day of Silence

For this essay I will be taking time to explain you what I did to become deaf and mute, explain struggles I had with this experiment, the frustrations and joys it brought, and what I plan to do with the results I received from the experiment. I will first tell you what I used to make myself deaf. Second, I will talk about the certain struggles I encountered during the experiment. Third, I will talk about the frustrations and joys I encountered during the experiment. Finally, I will talk about how I plan to use my experience and the results of the experiment have on my worldview.

The set up was pretty interesting. After seeing a gaming headset not work as well as I wanted I started to doubt that it could be done to a point of it being effective. After a lot of thinking of what could be done to limit the as much sound as possible I came up with two main ideas: First, I would use a legitimate sound canceling headset. By that I mean a headset that is said to cancel 90% of sound. I wanted to really do this one but finding a headset that would do that would have been expensive. So I came up with my second idea. I took earplugs that are used to help cancel sound when sleeping. Along with those I used a friend’s headset used at gun ranges to cancel out the gun shots. So that is what I used and how I got to cancel out most of the sound the day I did my experiment.

Some of the main struggles I faced with this experiment was the fact that I couldn’t hear and that made it extremely hard to communicate with my friends. That was probably the biggest one I felt, but there were a few others like when Josh wrote something done that I thought was hilarious I had to contain myself to not tell another joke or if I heard my name, not to react to it. If I couldn’t be 100% deaf, I wanted to at least act like I was.

There were a lot of frustrations and most of them I have already mentioned because they were a part of the struggles. So, I will talk about the joy I felt in this experiment. I really enjoyed the silence or the quieter state I was in. It was extremely relaxing and it actually helped me get stuff done more efficiently. This really limited the distractions I would have normally had in a normal day. The biggest joy was probably being able to experience something different and more importantly something that some people live with, not so much the being deaf because it wasn’t real deafness but the not being able to speak. I find joy when I have caught a glimpse of what some people live with like not being able to hear completely or not being able to talk. The reason is it really helps me to put myself in other people’s shoes.

Now from this I have learned a few things. We should not look down on people because they have a problem with something like a sense. I know myself and whenever I made the statement, “I don’t look down on or make myself better when I see someone with a disability.” I feel like a lot of say this and would not outright say that we are better than any of these things. However, I have come to notice that through this experiment that though I may not say that I am better. There is this feeling deep down that says I am better than that because I have all my senses functioning properly. I hate to admit that but it is true and I don’t think many people are far from that either. Now my worldview completely clashes with what I just said. My worldview goes along with that all men are created equal so there should be no discriminating going on. So, I have come to the conclusion that I need to change how I view people in this world. That comes with a change of a lifestyle in the sense of more commitment to God, because he is the only person who can change something like that.

I have shown you what I did to do this experiment, the struggles that came with it, the joys I got from it, and what I think I need to change to fulfill my worldview more effectively. This has been a eye opening experience, even without being able to become completely deaf, in the way that it really makes you think about what you have and not take it for granted. This is a very significant thing that becomes priceless when you take the knowledge you learn and actually put it to use to change your life and maybe even others. I highly recommend doing something like this, you will not regret it.