Not being able to see anything is a pretty serious problem, I'd have to admit. Close your eyes for a second. Pretty dark, ain't it? Imagine being like that forever. Can't really imagine it, can you? Ever try to walk somewhere with your eyes closed? Try it sometime. Somewhere where you know you won't injure yourself, either there's nothing around you, or you have somebody guiding you. I guarantee you, even if you trust this guide 100%, you're gonna feel like you're on the verge of walking into something, or tripping over something. Imagine if you had to trust a dog! Or worse, only a stick. I'd be hitting people left and right with the stick, I'd be flailing around so much. Imagine a typical day for you, but imagine that you cannot see at all the entire day. Wake up, but you can't see the damn alarm clock to hit the snooze button! Okay, that's not true, most people just wave their arm around until they accidentally hit it anyways. But think what a chore doing your morning washroom run would be if you were blind. Brushing your teeth, shaving. Try to take a piss with morning wood with no ability to see the toilet! A sure miss. Not being able to see beautiful sunsets, women and artwork. Not being able to watch TV! Or go on the computer! Yikes. Pretty rough.
Then, open up your eyes. You have your eyesight back. But you can't hear a thing. Trying to find the snooze button is no longer a concern. But getting up on time is! You'd be able to complete many of your daily activites I guess. I wonder if they let deaf people drive. The only reason you'd really need to hear is if somebody was honking their horn at you, or if there was an emergency vehicle screaming down the street. So what are the drawbacks? You won't be able to talk to people. Well, maybe a few, who know how to talk sign language. Or you can learn to read lips too I guess. But effectively, there's a lot of communication, out the window. Mighty lonely. Can't listen to music. That's a major problem for me at least. In our society, the only way to really find complete silence, is to go way out into the woods, where there are no roads around, no nothing around. And just listen as hard as you can. In the middle of winter. Ever tried that? Some find it peaceful. But take that utter silence, and transport it back into the busy city. People talking, cars moving, music playing, there's about a zillion different sources of background sound in any given place probably. And all you hear is that utter and complete silence. I don't know about you, but I'd probably find it a little creepy. Menacing. I take comfort in sound. Sound is such a powerful thing.
As a final note, let me hearken back to an article I wrote awhile back. It was about movie soundtracks. I mentioned that if you watch a horror movie with the mute on, it's not so bad. Not too scary at all. But if you close your eye and just listen to it.....there's a good chance you won't be able to sleep that night. So that's just another indication on how powerful sound is.