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How do we recognize what liberates us or allows for self-expression and…

- - - - In this quote, Torey demonstrates that although he has lost his sense of sight, he is still able to use his vision to construct a vivid depiction of reality. By employing his strong sense of observation and awareness, Torey can build his own image of reality in his mind. Torey realized that his blindness allowed him to find liberation, as his ability to construct reality within his imagination would not be present if he perceived the world conventionally through sight. This is a powerful instance of how an individual can develop their identity while transcending the normal bounds that society places.
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    - - Here, Hull is portrayed as accepting the fact that he is deprived of his sense of vision, unlike Torey, who remained very visual in his state of blindness. With Hull's deprivation of sight, he was able to robustly develop his four other senses to the point where he can observe the world in a whole new manner that defies the usual dark and empty narrative that society assigns to the narrative of the lives of the blind. Although blindness is typically very debilitating to one's ability to perceive their environment, Hull's blindness was just as much a gift to him as it was a curse. It forced him to vigorously sharpen his other senses, such as hearing and touching, to make up for his lost perception. This "paradoxical gift" of blindness enabled Hull to perceive his environment from a new perspective, allowing him to be much more observant and meticulous than before.
  - - - This observation highlights the main differences of Torey's and Hull's opposite approaches to coping with blindness. Torey resisted his blindness, and actively worked to keep visualizing reality in his imagination. Hull, on the other hand, accepted the fact he was blind and therefore surrendered any effort to refashion his sense of vision. This neglect for vision allowed Hull to be prone to involuntarily visualizing random, hallucinatory imagery. While addressing the question of what happens to the visual cortex without any visual input, Sacks states that "isolated from the outside, the visual cortex becomes hypersensitive to internal stimuli or all sorts: its own autonomous activity" (Sacks, 313). This quote shows that as a result of Hull's neglect of vision, his visual cortex began to respond to internal stimuli from other brain areas. While this did allow Hull to detach from society's bounds to an even greater extent by allowing the conjuration of more novel images, these images were not generated voluntarily by Hull. They come and go randomly like hallucinations. Torey, on the other hand, resisted blindness and remained very visual, and was able to use his visual dexterity to conjure up an image at his own will, not involuntarily like Hull. This difference goes to show that resisting blindness and adapting to remain visual is much more effective to foster the growth of one's unique identity, rather than surrendering to blindness and neglecting any visual development.
  - - - Sacks, describing Tenberken's vision of Tibet, recalls that "Tenberken saw, in her mind's eye, 'a beach of crystalized salt shimmering like snow under an evening sun, at the edge of a vast body of turquoise water...And down below, on the deep green mountain flanks, a few nomads were watching their yaks grazing.' But it then turns out that she has been facing in the wrong direction...'staring' at the rocks" (Sacks, 309)
        
        In this quote, Tenberken is seen having a very accurate and detailed imaginary vision of a Tibetan landscape. Although she thought that the landscape she was describing was in front of her, she was actually facing away from it, but still accurately described the scene. This goes to show that after Tenberken adapted to her change in perception by intertwining her other senses with vision, she is able to conceive of any image she pleases in her imagination, unbounded by the limitations of reality and society's influence.
    - - "'About a year after I [Hull] was registered blind...I began to have such strong images of what people's faces looked like that they were almost hallucinations'" (Sacks, 313).
        
        In this quote, Hull recalls that his imagination has been conjuring up powerful, fantastical images of reality. This shows that Hull, after accepting that he was blind, became very adept in viewing the world from another perspective. This adeptness translated to him having the ability to see the world through the abstract images of his imagination, unfettered by society's influence.
  - - - This idea that imagination can be a medium that allows one to generate novel concepts that can be seemingly impossible to realize in reality is seen in Torey. He completely constructs his own vision of everyday life in his imagination, and this visualization of reality may freely glide past the expectations of a blind person's reality as dictated by society, as Torey's visualizations are purely products of his own mind.