Artistic Association – Reflecting on TBI-and-disability connection

Today Magazine Online
1 day ago
6 min read

Updated: 5 hours ago

• Inspire Arts offering shines light on disability realm • Commentary

By Bruce William Deckert

Editor-in-Chief • Today Magazine Online

• Intro Note — The Inspire Arts program is designed to help survivors of a traumatic brain injury utilize creative expression as a key component of recovery while fostering pursuit of the arts as a life calling — the unique program is hosted by The Supported Living Group, a social-service agency based in Danielson, Connecticut, with satellite sites in Avon and Bethany •

• The art enterprise is offered at those two satellite sites — Inspire Arts senior manager Rebecca Maloney is based in Avon •

• A traumatic brain injury (or TBI) can occur in various disastrous ways — such as motor-vehicle accidents, military combat, severe strokes, sports mishaps, tragic falls or violent assaults — a TBI is widely considered a significant disability •

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This commentary essay is the fourth in a series related to Inspire Arts — links to the first three features can be found below

LET'S PLAY the Word Association Game, where a participant offers one word and the next participant voices another single word that comes to mind — true, since this is a written article online, not an in-person conversation, we can’t play the game as it’s ideally designed.

However, we can play via our imaginations and pretend we’re together in the same place — or if you prefer, you can email me your answer.

Here’s the word: disability. First, your turn — see the above paragraph for two game-play options.

Now it's my turn, and here’s my one-word answer — everybody — yes, every human who has ever existed, bar none. Don’t we all have disabilities that somehow correspond with our various abilities … downside that goes hand-in-hand with our upside … flaws that are perilously juxtaposed with our awesome gifts?

If anyone disagrees or demurs, a question: Do you think human beings who have been clinically diagnosed are the only people with disabilities?

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Taking the association game a step further, what other words and phrases come to mind when you hear the term "disability"? Perhaps someone who has an autistic predisposition or a chronic emotional condition or a consequential physical challenge or an intellectual and developmental disability (aka IDD).

Once more: When I ponder the disability phenomenon, the following phrase readily comes to mind — everyone on the planet.

While not everyone is diagnosed with a clinical disorder, an honest perception of psychology and history and sociology reveals that all people have strengths and weaknesses, gifts and flaws, skills and idiosyncrasies — we are all, in a word, human.

A clinical diagnosis can make a crucial difference for an individual and a family, yet the same clinical diagnosis can also unfairly put someone in a suffocating box. The complex reality of the human experience resists such a stifling view.

As far as I can see, the characteristics we share as fellow human beings are more significant than the distinction between people identified with clinical disorders and people whose disorders haven't been clinically diagnosed — those whose disorders and wounds don't appear to be as outwardly evident yet are just as acute and dire internally, on the unseen essential inside, in the heart-and-mind-and-soul realm.

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What do you believe about these burning questions — do you think your dysfunctions are any less serious than the dysfunction of a neighbor who has been diagnosed with a formally classified physical or psychological or neurodevelopmental disorder?

True, a formal clinical diagnosis doesn’t apply to everyone. Yet if we object to being labeled as disabled, are we being honest with ourselves?

As gifted we all are, we are also — shall we admit — broken and flawed. This applies to you and me and the talented TBI survivors of the Inspire Arts initiative that's nestled in the heart of Connecticut's Farmington Valley.

Since a traumatic brain injury is a considerable disability, and since my premise is that all people possess both abilities and disabilities, I wonder if the transitive property likewise applies: While we humans surely benefit from the mind's upside, can we infer and even assert that everyone must deal with a metaphorical traumatic brain injury that is part-and-parcel of the human condition?

Call this question crazy, if you wish, yet I reckon a case can be made that the answer is yes — and if this universal TBI assessment is true, who offers the best long-term restorative solution? I hope to contemplate these queries in a follow-up commentary article. +

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• This feature is the fourth in a four-part series — the first three:

Part 1: Inspire Arts – Offering creative hope to brain injury survivors

Part 2: Inspirational Initiative – Exclusive Q&A with Inspire Arts principals

Part 3: Tale of 2+2 Artists – Inspire Arts foursome add creativity to injury

Yes, a fifth feature inspired and illuminated by the Inspire Arts initiative is in the works — this would be the second TBI commentary piece in an overall five-part series — my goal is delivery by Christmas ... stay tuned

+++

• The Hearing Paradox: Communication Musings

By the way, regarding the two options mentioned above for playing the Word Association Game — welcome to a few philosophical and quasi-humorous musings that are hopefully practical as well.

As a reminder, here are the two options: pretending we’re together in the same place or emailing me your answer.

If you choose the first option and imagine we're in the same room and speak your word aloud, I won't be able to hear you ... isn't this safe to say? Or are you confident enough in your lung capacity and bellowing ability that you believe I'll be able to hear your elocution from wherever in the world you utter your one-word association?

Regardless of your confidence, many observers would consider this to be an unlikely scenario — safe to say, indeed — and would likewise advise against betting your life on this likelihood.

So the email option appears best to ensure that I can hear your one-word answer via the written word. Yet utilizing the term "hear" in this context seems to present a paradox: Is it truly possible to hear a nonauditory written word?

If we object to being labeled as disabled, are we being honest with ourselves? As gifted we all are, we are also — shall we admit — broken and flawed

Apparently we've entered the domain of the Communication Catch-22 — and evidently the correct answer to this question is in the Both-And Realm: No, it isn't literally possible to hear a word that's communicated in writing, but yes, it's certainly possible to acquire knowledge via the written word ... and as clear as day, sometimes written communication begins as the spoken word.

So is it possible to genuinely hear an answer via the written word? Upon further review, perhaps this concept presents neither a Catch-22 nor an inherent paradox.

Indeed, an online dictionary illuminates this hearing-via-writing reality with compelling clarity — consider the following multilayered Merriam-Webster.com definitions of the term "hear" when employed as a verb:

• hear – transitive verb — to perceive or become aware of by the ear • to gain knowledge by hearing: that is, by perceiving sound

• hear – intransitive verb — to gain information: that is, to learn • to receive communication

Clearly, the first definition is connected to hearing as an auditory experience — in other words, when the ear detects sound waves — while the second definition encompasses hearing as both an audible spoken-word experience and a written-word phenomenon.

Thanks for reading this far — to me, this multifaceted subject is fascinating, and I hope these musings are at least quasi-helpful in our shared quest for accurate, reliable and true information. +

Featuring community news that matters nationwide, Today Magazine Online aims to record Connecticut’s underreported upside — covering the heart of the Farmington Valley and beyond

Today editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert is a multi-award-winning journalist who believes all people merit awards when we leverage our various God-given gifts for good

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