Dr. Kramer's post about a young woman who thinks of her autism as a different way of being, not as a disorder, got me thinking about how people can stretch their brains around disabilities with amazing results.
Take Ben Underwood: He's a blind teenager and echolocation wizard—by clicking his tongue and carefully interpreting the quality of the echo each sound produces, he can safely navigate the streets on his roller blades, and even beats his brother at pillow fights.
Barbara Corcoran, whom I spoke with for a story PT did on perserverence, confessed that her dyslexia forced her to build up compensatory mental skills, such as an excellent memory and the ability to talk extemporaneously about nearly any subject, which led her to great success as an entreprenuer.
The ability to see the world with fresh eyes is the defining quality of great artists. Kevin Connolly leveraged his perspective on life as a legless guy who gets around on a skateboard into a compelling series of photos of people staring at him.
After he lost his hearing at the age of 46, Spanish master Francisco de Goya painted some of his darkest and best art.
Perhaps the most inspring contemporary example of achieving greatness in spite of one's limitations is Jean-Dominque Bauby, the French journalist who wrote an acclaimed memoir while "locked in" after a stroke. Unable to speak or move any part of his body except his left eye, he used a code to signify letters of the alphabet with blinks, and from that tedious process built sentences and paragraphs, and finally, the entire book, all dictated to a dedicated assistant.
Through his enormous determination, Bauby gave the world access to his vast internal life, where he felt cruelly imprisoned and, simultaneously, freer than ever.
