Intuitive Choices

Dave Steele: The Blind Poet Finding His Voice by Being a Voice for Others

• Kimberley Dobbs and Jacob Miller • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Dave Steele, also known as The Blind Poet, joins us today to paint a vivid recount of not just living with vision loss, but also the battles with homelessness, mental health struggles, and the resilience it takes to navigate life's adversities.

What does it mean to be blind? Does it imply a life of limitations or can it be a world full of potential and opportunities? Dave tackles these misconceptions head-on, sharing how his retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis may limit his sight, but it has ignited his vision. Today, Dave's poetry serves as a lifeline for many who are dealing with similar situations, echoing a message of resilience and hope.

The Blind Poet’s Website
https://www.theblindpoet.net/

Dave’s Video with Meta
https://m.facebook.com/Meta/videos/the-blind-poet/683055240000348/

The Blind Poet’s Facebook Page
https://m.facebook.com/theBlindPoetRP/



Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of Intuitive Choices. Just so you know, today's episode will have a discussion revolving around suicidality. Get ready for a fantastic episode.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Intuitive Choices.

Speaker 2:

Today, jacob and I are so lucky to have on our show somebody by the name of Dave Steele.

Speaker 2:

You know, a lot of the people that Jacob and I have had on our show thus far have been kind of people that we've known, and so this is really exciting for us because I came across Dave on Facebook because, you know, as you know, people who listen to our podcast know I have written out his Pimitosa and I am blind, and so all of a sudden something came up on my Facebook of a beautiful poem by this guy who goes by the name the blind poet. And I read his poem or listened to it, I should say, and I was like, oh my god, this feels like this poem was written about me and I didn't even run it by Jacob. I just cold emailed this gentleman, found him and said, hey, I have this, you know I co-host this podcast which would be willing to come on and just talk to us about your experience and how you became the blind poet. And you said, yes, dave, and so here we are, I feel so we're so lucky to have you and so welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for joining us, dave.

Speaker 2:

This is so exciting.

Speaker 1:

I'm both very grateful that Kim cold emailed you and that you said yes, and in all our conversations before you know, I'm just really, really happy to have met you so far and looking forward to learn more about your story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, me too. Thank you and thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no problem, I you know what I feel like. I cannot remember exactly what the poem was. It was the poem, I think it's like it's one of your like quintessential poems of like what it was like for you to go blind.

Speaker 3:

I think. I think the PC you're talking about was. It was actually a piece I wrote for a collaboration I did with Metta.

Speaker 1:

That's correct. It is that poem.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah they. They came out and a film crew out from California flew out to the UK, to Manchester where I live, arrived at my house at like 7 30 on a Sunday morning and we filmed all day. And it was for this kind of ongoing series they do call Community Voices, where they pick people who use social media for good and, you know, use social media to inspire others and they tell lots of people's different stories. But the way they wanted to do it with me was slightly different. So they came kind of gave me an idea of what they wanted to do and then I put it into a piece of poetry and the poem that you heard was was from that video, kind of telling my story from the, the moment of diagnosis to kind of becoming the blind poet.

Speaker 1:

You know I've seen in both knowing Kim for how long I've known Kim and individuals that she's introduced me to in the RP community. You know it's there's so much similarity but yet profound individuality and difference in every individual who is experiencing this disorder.

Speaker 3:

Definitely, yeah, you know, that's one of the great things about actually communicating with others and reaching out. It was one of the first things that I actually got told at the very beginning of my journey, when I was really, really struggling with my diagnosis was the best way to understand what you're going through is to speak to other people who are going through the same thing and actually, as, as you know, as simple as that sounds, it actually didn't occur to me back then to do that, and it was, you know, making those connections which inspired me to kind of start writing when I started talking to other people and finding that we have this common thread.

Speaker 2:

How did you find those people to talk to?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, really great at first. I mean there was a mixture actually. So my audience, funny enough, has always been kind of in the US. You know my kind of key, kind of following, if you want to call it that, in the UK what I tend to find.

Speaker 3:

It's not so bad now, but at the beginning, when I first started writing the poetry in the UK we have this term you may have heard of, called stiff upper lip. Sure, yeah, it basically means you know that it's like that old fashioned way of especially men, or you shouldn't talk about your emotions and shouldn't talk about your feelings and keep it bottled in. And you know stiff upper lip and it's just ridiculous. And actually you know from a lot of people within the blind community in the UK when I first started writing the poetry, I got a lot of negative comments of people saying, oh, you shouldn't write about anxiety and you shouldn't talk about depression and you shouldn't talk about our struggles because that's putting blindness in a bad light or it being seen as a weakness, and got a lot of hate and some really kind of nasty comments.

Speaker 1:

From within the community itself.

Speaker 3:

you're saying yeah, from within the community itself, saying that I was kind of shining a bad light on it and that my poems were full of pity and it's kind of like that thing that you know, if people only want to focus and drill down on one part of it, that's all they're going to see, right. Whereas there was always light and dark. You know light and shade within my poetry. I'd tell the good days and the bad days and I always try to, you know, on the really raw, emotional poems, talking about all those feelings, I'd always put a positive spin on it. But you have some people who, when they read it, will only focus and hear those those negative parts and miss the other message.

Speaker 2:

Well, even so, here you've found like a medium of self-expression, right, that is helping you cope and deal with going blind, which is traumatizing, right from from one person who's experienced it to another, and and then you're doing this thing that's actually helpful for you, and then you're getting this feedback from people that are telling you, yo, you're doing it wrong. You know so that, yeah, I had a beginning.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I kind of took it to heart at the beginning but I kind of stuck with it and I'm glad I did, because I believed in you know what I was doing and I've been proved right by the people that helped, but for me it was. It was when I first came up with the idea it was. I couldn't believe there wasn't anyone else or more people actually doing it, because to me it was the same thing. As you know, we all turn to particular songs, music when we are struggling, you know dark times, whether it be you know losing someone we love, or you know a breakup or something like that. We have songs that get us through, and poetry and storytelling within that kind of realm of you know music and poetry.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's the same thing. It makes people kind of feel it more Right, yeah, so yeah, for me it was just, you know, it was so obvious that that was a really you know great way of being able to have well supposed. For me it was have a purpose, you know, find a place in the world again.

Speaker 1:

Or maybe to have your purpose like realized. Like you know, I imagine it's the purpose that leads to the drive to create the art.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, I'd never written poetry before I started, you know, started to lose my sight. I'd written a couple of poems when I was younger, you know, and I worked as a singer for the best part 20 years, which, kind of you know, led me to this. I always thought that I was meant to be a singer, but now, when I look back on it, it just gave me the tools to do what I do now. So, you know, just having that kind of understanding of flow and rhythm allowed me to kind of write the way I do and, you know, on the level of doing the amount that I do, where it just kind of spilled out on me.

Speaker 2:

And I mean you're. I mean you're speaking all over the world right before we even started recording. You're like coming back and forth from the United States to the back and forth to the UK, like doing all kinds of of keynote speaking. But this hasn't always been your life, right, a big you know. When you got diagnosed with RP, things were kind of rough, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean they were rough long before that as well. I mean, I spent most of my life thinking I was cursed.

Speaker 1:

Can we zoom out for a moment? Can you let us know a little bit about, like a little bit about life growing up, the transition? Like you know, in America, like the school years, are a little different. What we call different things are different in the UK.

Speaker 3:

So like for me. You know, never really had a kind of strong family kind of background connection. My dad passed away when I was 13. He was actually 72 when he passed away, so he was like 60 when he had me. So he was he could never really do a lot for me. The only thing he ever did for me was really introduced me to football or soccer as you call my team, manchester United, which is, you know, big football team.

Speaker 3:

He used to take me to that when I was a kid and that was the only thing he ever did for me. So that became a massive passion of mine and still is today with my, with my son or my sons, I should say and my, you know, mom kind of met somebody else after he passed away and pretty much kind of moved in with this guy. I, you know, was pretty much on my own, a lot of my kind of formative years. So when I left college and went to work away as a singer when I was like 18, I actually didn't have a family home anymore.

Speaker 3:

My mom had moved in with this guy. We never really got on, so that was fractured. So I used to go away and work as a singer kind of seasonal work, you know, during the summer, touring around on cruise ships and working at hotels and things like that, and and during the kind of downtime when these places weren't open, I was homeless. So I had many a time where I'd be kind of like sofa surfing. There was times when I was out in the streets with bags and stuck for places to stay, which really affected my mental health.

Speaker 3:

There was, you know, times where you know there was a couple of suicide attempts when I was really really struggling and actually kind of, you know, looking back on all that now kind of fast forward and we'll cut back to that in a minute I was a great believer that everything happens for a reason, and all these things that happened to me in my formative years gave me first of all the strength to face sight loss and going blind in a different way to most people, because of what I've been through in the past yeah gave me the armor to face the things I was yet to face going forward, but also gave me this kind of openness and ability to be able to talk about things that a lot of people maybe struggle to kind of voice and talk, whether that's just you know was talking like this or through the poetry.

Speaker 2:

It's like everything that you've lived provided opportunity for you to like utilize whatever those things that you were learning to like apply to your life as you were living it.

Speaker 3:

Well, I can't let me tell you this little story. So I've actually written about this and it's out there somewhere. And I was it got response when I said that. I remember this is long before I was diagnosed with RP, when I was in my early twenties. I was down, you know, between jobs and I had nowhere to stay, and I was down on the south coast of England near this kind of like seaside town and things weren't really working out all and I gave up. I completely gave up and I was like, okay, I just can't take this anymore and I had all my worldly belongings and I cut in like three whole bags of my shoulders, I dumped them in these bushes and I walked along this beach intending to kind of end it.

Speaker 2:

End your life Like you really tried to complete suicide.

Speaker 3:

I found like this pylon kind of electrical tower thing, and I was going to climb up to the top and let myself go off it and I sat on this bench waiting for it to get dark and these two young lads walked past and as they walked past they saw me and one of them said oh, you okay. And I was like inside of me everything was crying out saying tell them everything. Tell them that you know you need help and you're struggling. And this sat on the other. But I just kind of went yeah, I'm fine, as you know, you just kind of I'm okay. And one of them had some beers that they bought from a local shop and they passed me a beer.

Speaker 3:

And as they walked off into the distance, I kind of had this internal conversation with myself and thinking, man, if I'd have told them, maybe they could have helped me and I could have gone back with them and they would have helped me get back on my feet or give me somewhere to stay for the night and all these little things. And I went to the the when and I climbed over this fence, went to the top of this tower, climbed all the way up and held myself off the edge waiting to let myself drop and something inside of me just went no, and before I knew it I'd climbed back down. I'd walked all the way along a couple of miles back down the beach, found my bags that were dropped in a bush, and I got on with my life and I carried on.

Speaker 2:

Dave. So holy cow. So it wasn't. This is like a statement slash question. Like I don't, I don't feel like. That was like fear. Telling you no, there was something else. Telling you no, do you know what I mean? Like you're at the top of a tower right, like it wasn't like.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I'm scared to jump off something telling me that you know I meant for more. What's interesting is like.

Speaker 1:

I mean we always tell people like the podcast is not therapy, we do not want it, you know. I mean you're talking to therapist but you're talking to therapist and the moment that sticks out for me is stashing your bag somewhere, as opposed to just like leaving them out in the open, as if you were going to come back to them.

Speaker 3:

I mean literally just kind of put them in a bush. I mean they could, they could have been taken because you know they were just kind of there, but I didn't just leave them right.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, maybe subconsciously yeah, that you're gonna go back, but I'd never actually until you've said that I've never actually thought about that too much yeah, there's a lot of things you're saying like reminds me of things like Victor Frankel wrote in his book like man search for meaning. And saying, like you know a lot of these big psychologists from like the original era of psychologists, you know Freud and Young and all these, all these up people they like talk about the will to something you know that's what keeps people alive and and Victor Frankel talks about the thing that really drives humanity and keeps us alive essentially is the will to meaning. And a master level therapist like like Victor Frankel. And when suicidal clients would come to him, he would say like they would say, like you know, express why they were suicidal. And then he would say so, why don't you kill yourself and I'm sure he said in a different tone but really wanted to tap onto is like you have not killed yourself yet you may be suicidal sitting in the office with me.

Speaker 1:

So what's keeping you here? And just by putting your bags in the bush, that shows that something's keeping you here. So what do you think that thing was?

Speaker 3:

I think it was just knowing that things could change in the future, that no matter. You know how bad things seemed at that moment, you know there was no telling where I could be in a few, you know a few years time. I know was longed for the thing that was missing as a kid, of having, you know, a family, a safe place, a home, all those things so was that?

Speaker 2:

so it was almost like that right, like there's a part of you that was thinking yeah, I mean my lifestyle at that time, you know, was the furthest away from kind of those sort of things.

Speaker 3:

I was, you know, touring around as a singer and I had this kind of whole existence where, you know, one minute I was staying in beautiful places, in lovely hotels, performing in front of you know big audiences and doing something that I was so passionate about to be, you know having nothing and being, you know, in that really dark place. But I knew that, you know, I'd have these moments to be able to do the other thing and I think the thing that kind of changed it for me was, you know, I'd had a couple of occasions where, you know, there was times like that. And then I was working in Cyprus in my early 20s and had an accident. Well, it's an accident. I was actually. I was electrocuted on stage, whoa, I was blown up whoa, I've got you can't see my hands here.

Speaker 3:

I've got like entrance and exit rooms on my. On my hands there was, you know, you have a trip box for electricity. Yeah, I was performing this hotel and it was a new hotel and the wire wasn't great. There was no trip box and there was a surge of electricity and it came straight through the lead microphone and I went to take it out the stand and it blew me up and I was on a life support machine with a regular heartbeat for a couple of weeks outside and it nearly died. I've been holding my hands and you know everything fried, but that experience kind of I was, you know, so close to kind of not being around and it was simple as flicking on a switch yeah, that kind of made me realize how fragile life is and actually you know how to kind of really make the most of it and appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Wow, and I'm not saying I learned all the lessons back then. I think actually it wasn't until I got on this path now where I started. You know, I became the blind pilot and started to lose my sight. That that I really learned the most.

Speaker 3:

I, as I was saying at the beginning, you know a lot of things happened in my formative years through my 20s where no matter what I was doing in life, it just wouldn't work out. You know, I almost felt like it was cursed at times. Just nothing would ever go right, whether it be jobs, relationships, it would never. It would never seem to happen. Yeah, and then, all of a sudden, when I was at my lowest, after being diagnosed and found this ability to express through the poetry and that in turn, was helping people, it's so spooky. You talk about, you know, I'll fly to America and do this, that and the other. Now, since that very moment when I discovered this ability to write the poetry and I started to get that response, it is spookily crazy how I meet people at the right place, the right time have these incredible opportunities.

Speaker 3:

Yep, and everything in my life just kind of fell into place. Yep, the moment my sight started to go yep, yeah, I'm a I'm a fervent believer.

Speaker 1:

That's. Every, every single individual on the planet has like their role in humanity. You know, it could be a spectrum of different things that could be, but well, what our hope is in the podcast is that people learn how to tap into their own intuition to make the choice that they have to do in order to find like their role, their vocation, their calling, whatever that is.

Speaker 2:

And then their flow.

Speaker 1:

That's true, and that's how it comes out.

Speaker 3:

That is 100% what I've done, you've totally done it, I believe.

Speaker 1:

So you said you weren't conceited or anything.

Speaker 3:

I believe that my poetry and my words are going to be so important a long time after I'm gone from the impact I've already had. I've already seen and I see every day the messages I get from people the difference it makes and it's crazy and I'd never take that for granted. I'm so humbled by it, but it flaws me every single day.

Speaker 1:

And so in some ways, you know, you said you came to poetry like later in life, but in some ways you're also always the poet. Yeah, and it was realizing that that was like a part of your essence. How you know, we don't live in an era where everyone's reading poetry, where everyone's writing poetry. You know, how did you realize within yourself that that was going to be something? I would let your, your self expression come out and connect with others.

Speaker 3:

So for me it came from the music side. So just to kind of give the brief version of how it happened was when I was really really struggling after that diagnosis. As a family, we lost our house because how old were you? When you were diagnosed and how old are you now 38 and you're 48 now, so 10 years ago.

Speaker 3:

You know my wife, my now wife, amy we I just asked to marry me. We set a date of New Year's Eve 2014. We had our son Austin, together, who was born in June 2013. You know, we I've had my daughter from a previous relationship, ellie, who lives in Glasgow. I was driving up and getting her every other weekend back down to Manchester. Amy had two sons from a previous marriage who was a similar age to Ellie, and we had this perfect little new family. And when the diagnosis came, everything just kind of fell apart. We lost our house, we struggled financially because I'd lost my job. My means of support was always based around driving. I worked as a singer, I also worked in car sales and then I lowest, I got invited to a support group for people with our condition, rp, and another condition called Usher Syndrome, which is the same site last year and hearing loss.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and the organizers of the support group said to me when they heard that I was a singer, would you come and sing some songs and be the entertainment for the support group that day? And I said yes, because I was really nervous about going and meeting other blind people for the first time, especially at the timer, was that I was very anxious.

Speaker 1:

What made you nervous about that?

Speaker 3:

Just being around people with canes and guide dogs was a glimpse into my future.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, that scared the hell out of me.

Speaker 1:

So you know it prevents you from being able to rely on like denial, like you can't, you can't, yeah, exactly yeah exactly.

Speaker 3:

So when I, when they asked me to be a state you know the entertainment and support group I just said yeah, because that was my comfort zone. Being on stage talking like this.

Speaker 2:

I'm so relaxed and then you're not the blind, you're not the guy that's going blind, you're the guy that's singing Exactly. For the support Dude, I get it.

Speaker 3:

So yeah. So my kind of eureka moment was the night before it. I was in bed, Amy's trying to get to sleep next to me. I'm going over ideas of songs to sing for them the following day, and I just had this idea where I thought it'd be really cool if I could take a song that everyone knows and change the words and talk about my experience with low vision blindness. So I chose Stand by Me by Benny.

Speaker 3:

Kink. Because, well, the opening line of when the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see, that's like night blindness. So I rewrote the song in about 20 minutes, changed the words, called it Stand by Me, rp. And when I performed it the following day, that was the first time I got that reaction of people saying to me the words that I'd written was describing their feelings and all of a sudden I just felt like this is something I can do to have a place in the world. That's going to make a difference, because everything I'd done in the past you know working as a singer and even working in car sales to a certain point but you know everything I'd done and always involved making other people feel good, yeah, be about their new car or performing on stage and enjoying their night and having a good holiday or vacation.

Speaker 3:

through my singing, it's all about making other people happy.

Speaker 2:

And like having that sort of like that joy that you can share in that experience with that person.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, you know it's crazy about that story is when I went for my first guide dog, roughly the same year, I think we're talking 2014. No, it was April of 2014 when I went for my first guide, and at the guide dog school that I went to they the graduation my class nominated me to say the speech and we were all at dinner and I was like guys, you know, we should do, we should like, we should sing a song, and so I rewrote the lyrics to Stand by Me and we all, and we all sang that song at the graduation.

Speaker 2:

And that was a big moment for me too, right, like you know getting the, getting the dog and being like man I'm well, I don't know if I told you with with my guide dog, Christopher, you know now nearly 10. Oh, so is there a slow? She's not almost just nine, yeah, but God.

Speaker 3:

So when my first book, which was named after that song stand by me right came out in your books are also also named Stam.

Speaker 1:

Am I as well? Is that correct?

Speaker 3:

What's that Sorry?

Speaker 3:

the books that come after Stam Am I are also named Right Stand by me are people with only one, two and three, but the first one really the release every February in 2016, 2017 and 2018. But when the first one came out the first time being an author and having a book out, which was a really big thing on the day the book got released on Amazon, me and my wife Amy we're going to celebrate our restaurant and I got a phone call from guide dogs in the UK saying they'd found a match waiting list for a guide dog for 18 months. Oh my gosh, the day that book came out that was the first day I got told by Christopher. I just got the Charles.

Speaker 1:

It was crazy. It's one thing to like rewrite those songs, to to stand by the lyrics, to stand by me and, you know, perform for this group, but not everyone would see that as like a special moment to like stick with it, continue to refine the craft. So how did you continue to develop as a poet and like entering this into this new, like era of your life?

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So for me and you know I've only figured out the answers to these questions as I've kind of gone through the years, and it's obviously been, you know, 10 years since I was diagnosed, almost, and nine years since I started writing the poetry For me, I've always been and I now realize this more than ever the biggest empath.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I have this really uncanny ability to be able to put myself in other people's shoes as well.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so you know, if people can tell me, you know, stories of emotions and things that they've been through, and I listen to them and feel it as if I've gone through it myself. Yeah, so the more stories that I would listen to and the more poems and the more things I would post online from these support groups and these RP support groups, the more you know emotions and feelings and everything that I was going for, I'd get to them, write the pieces and then, when I started to get that kind of same response that not just people were encouraged by my words and made to feel like they were less alone and that I was describing their feelings, but the biggest thing for me that they were doing, and they still do to this day, is that they were using my words as a way for them to describe how they were feeling to their loved ones and their friends and their family, for when they can't find the words themselves and also even the poems that are encouraging. So when they read my poems to themselves, they're reading my words to them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And it's their internal voice reading my words to encourage themselves, and that's a really powerful thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, to hear yourself, encourage yourself with like words that you one couldn't find yourself, but by going through the process it it doesn't being a poet.

Speaker 2:

I just I don't think that's necessarily something that like people, just it's. It's. Yes, it's a skill you can build, but it's something that comes very naturally from within you. So when you're saying people like read your poems, like when I, when I listen to your your poem, like that stuff doesn't come naturally for me, right, and so that's what makes this so for me and what you're doing so meaningful is because it really does create such a space. It just it, just it's.

Speaker 3:

it creates words to something that doesn't necessarily come, come to me you know this may sound really weird, right, but like now, I've written over 3000 pieces of poetry, right. I've never written one that's taken me longer than 15, 20 minutes to write Exactly.

Speaker 3:

Because if it's not coming from the heart, it's not worth writing. There's plenty of poems that I've not finished, where I've started to write them and just started to stagger with them and then I've gone, I'll just leave it and get rid of it and they, they disappear. But the best piece of poetry I've ever written are the ones that, literally, I get an idea in my head and it's like someone sat on my shoulder Speaking the words to me. I get an idea and the words just flow out of me without even thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's what makes it so magical. I feel bad because I cut you off. No, no, no, no, I know.

Speaker 1:

I know exactly what I'm going to say but, I, just really it.

Speaker 1:

The words were poetic ended up themselves to talk about the other worldliness of being able to be a conduit for the poetry. And while you're both, you both are and are not the writer you know in a lot of ways that the oh, there's such a depth there and I'm just trying to self censor in God where I want to take the conversation, because I could go pretty deep over there. But when, in any form of communication, we're taking pre-linguistic ideas and capturing them in words and then sharing them with another who then hears our words or reads our words and then internalizes them into their own personhood, right, that's just. That's just what communication is.

Speaker 1:

The thing with poetry, art, music specifically, is because it is so often non-literal or is supposed to be tapping into an emotional reality as opposed to a factual reality, that we use more like amorphous and ambiguous language, which in some ways is a better conduit for the emotions than just describing them. You know it's not poetry to write down like, like a nostalgia. You know sentimentality, happiness, sadness, you know that wouldn't evoke like a poetic feeling in someone. But being able to convey the emotional reality in, for some reason, rhyme and meter taps is able to evoke emotions in an individual that they could not feel on their own.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, that's what you're doing and I don't know if it's useful to like talk about philosophy, to talk about poetry in that way.

Speaker 3:

No, yeah, 100. Yeah, I get it so can I just I know, because I know you'll edit all this. Yeah, I want to read you something and this kind of gives you a prime example. This is something you've probably you've not heard before, but and it goes on what we were just talking about as well.

Speaker 2:

Why would we have heard it before?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's not one that I've posted for a while. I have posted this. That's exciting, but it always gets a good response. Okay, but it kind of talks about what we've just been talking about. Let me just read it again. You can take it, please do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there have been so many times that I have stood there on the ledge, saw no way out, consumed by doubt and scarred by razor's edge, but something kept me breathing. There's a hidden strength in me, another piece of armor for the days when I can't see. I've suffered deepest heartbreak, been betrayed by closest friend, walk cobbled streets with all I own, with no one to depend. But instead of building barriers, I opened up my soul and when they called game over, gave the dice another roll. I've lost so many battles, but I'm still within this war, though pains replayed as eyes now fade, spend days behind closed door. I've lost some independence, but I'm fighting to get back. These faded scars upon my wrist will keep me right on track, no matter what the future holds or hurt that still to come. I'll win this life with love of wife, my daughter and my sons. I'll lead them by example. With my cane. I'll make them proud, for every tear has brought me here to lift this hazy shroud.

Speaker 3:

Don't ever think that it's just you who struggles to be strong by blindness. Isolated, busy places don't belong so many people doubting what you can or cannot see like vision. Friends have slipped away, as well as family, but no need to feel lonely, because there's many like you here. We share in every challenged face. We share in every tear. We all have good and bad ideas. No need to be alone. When you need a friend, just stand by me or just pick up the phone, for I won't break my promise that I have made to those like me. No one should feel alone with this, consumed by how we see. Believe me when I tell you all this poem's message is true. Just know, in darkest tunnel, I'll be standing next to you.

Speaker 2:

Oh my god, I feel like you wrote that poem to me.

Speaker 3:

I get that response all the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah that was so, that was so magical. Thank you, you wrote that in 15 to 20 minutes. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm 100, well, 3000, like it.

Speaker 1:

To me that says that in some way there is an inherent capability and an artist to be able to create their works in that amount of time, or when creating a work actually probably almost happens in an instant and then takes the 15 to 20 minutes for you to like open up that seed and have it sprout into a given poem.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

And I imagine that's true with many, most, if not all artists. But then there's barriers that come in the way, that block them in the process of bringing that thing out.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, and I think it's about keeping living in the process and not having those barriers.

Speaker 2:

A lot of artists perform and think we're leaning into the barriers right, like there's always gonna be barriers, like life is life, but it's like, what are we doing right with those barriers?

Speaker 3:

So a lot of the greatest kind of songwriters. They write their best stuff either at the beginning of their journey or when they're really struggling and in dark places. What tends to happen with a lot of artists is they'll change their lives and have big houses, fancy cars and all that stuff and then all of a sudden they're not able to write about those, the things that they used to write about, and they lose that artistic flow. For me, sight loss and low vision and the world that is surrounding that is something that I live in constantly, so I'm in that and able to continually pump out the poetry and write the volume that I do.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like what you're saying is by living in the meaningfulness of constantly processing your vision loss. It gives you the clarity to let the art come out and not be distracted by other things, that's exactly it and accepting it's like.

Speaker 2:

I believe acceptance is ongoing sort of lifelong experience. So it's like this ongoing accepting that this is your reality, you know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think we all, we all. It's a process that we never stop experiencing. I don't think anyone kind of goes with this oh, I've got the handle on this now and everything's good.

Speaker 2:

I've got it, I'm good, I'm blind and I'm good and, like that being said, there was something that I came across on Facebook that actually I'm not even friends with Amy, your wife on Facebook, but her post came. Oh you know why? Because she tagged you in it and she wrote it was only a couple of weeks ago and she wrote this incredible post about this party that you guys went to you and your family I think it was a graduation party, maybe.

Speaker 3:

No, it was there. It was one of Amy's nephew's 21st birthday party.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and it was such an evocative post because it starts out like everything was great, you know, everybody was seeing family and it's like this great fun thing.

Speaker 2:

And then she saw you sitting at the table, sitting at your table, and I think she went in and checked in with you and you can tell the story, you know.

Speaker 2:

But and then you had said to her this is the most disabled I've ever felt since my diagnosis. And I can remember like the tears streaming down my face listening to this post, because I thought to myself, oh my gosh, like first of all I felt not alone, because I thought to myself, man, this guy's crushing it at life and he's doing all this, like you know, speaking, and he's writing all this beautiful poetry. And then I was like there was a little part of me that was like, oh gosh, you know, like he's going through this thing, that like there, he's still gonna have these moments that are hard. And I just was like I have to talk to Dave about this on the podcast. Like one, what was that experience like for you? And two, like when you have those moments like how do you, how do you like, how do you get it together to be like okay, cool, I'm gonna keep moving.

Speaker 3:

Didn't, to be honest. So to kind of go back the part the party was, as I said, it was one of Amy's nephews 21st birthday. I'd had kind of a few different events and Amy had been busy with work and you know, family stuff and school and the other. We'd not had an opportunity to kind of be together as a family. So we were really looking forward to this night. We got all dressed up. You know it was a very rare occasion for us to be all out together to do that.

Speaker 3:

We drove over and we got there and you know it was a kind of small kind of club, not like a nightclub, like a kind of function room with and they had a DJ on and there was a bar and we walked in and it was all family and it was nice and walked in there and it was hugging people and saying hello and everything was great. And you know I love Amy's family and so relaxed with them all the time and obviously they're very aware of my site and everything else. So I went in with my cane everyone's saying hello to me. I went and sat at this table and the way the room was kind of laid out it was all kind of. There was a dance floor in the middle and there was all tables around the outside, but they were kind of spaced out in the way that it was very difficult to communicate with people on different tables.

Speaker 3:

So you're only speaking to the people at your table.

Speaker 2:

Like right next to you.

Speaker 3:

I don't know what you're like, but there's this strange thing when you have low vision that you know we've all done these kind of courses and we've heard people talk about how much of communication is non-verbal and when you're in a space where it's dim light and you're, and it's loud and you're not able to see and pick up on people's body language, it almost makes a person with low vision feel like the death because you can't see these signals, you're not picking up on this massive part of the conversation so often. You know, I've many times in the past where I've been in social settings and felt so isolated from groups of people and not able to kind of join in because of my vision. But I was fine when I got in but as the kind of night went on, the lights seemed to get darker, the music seemed to get louder, there was people up on the dance floor enjoying themselves and all of a sudden I just felt like everything was closing in on me and my tunnel of vision got so blurry with the flashing lights and it was so loud that I was just sat there and I couldn't see who was next to me. I couldn't see anyone in front of me, I couldn't hear what was going on and I felt like I was just encasing this wall of blur and sound and all I could hear was people around me laughing and enjoying themselves. My son, austin, was on the dance floor dancing away and I just felt like I'm just not a part of it and I am spoiling it for everyone else and I shouldn't be there. And at that point it felt like I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was like I need to get out of here and I didn't want to upset anyone.

Speaker 3:

And I remember saying to Amy I said look, you know I'll go and I'll go and wait in the car until you're done. And she was just like we're going, we're going, which made me feel even worse because it was like I knew she was having a great time, my family were all having a great time, and I remember getting whisked out of the room as we were leaving and people kind of saying goodbye to me and stuff, and I just felt dreadful yeah, because people obviously knew that I didn't look happy. And I got home and I went into the bedroom and I cried myself to sleep Like sobbing, absolute sobbing. And Amy, the blog that you wrote she stayed up till like two, three in the morning crying and writing that piece, to kind of express about it, and I didn't actually read it till the following morning, but it was yeah.

Speaker 2:

Your tears like the crying. What was that for you?

Speaker 3:

It was. I just felt distraught that you know I tried to be so positive and it was just. Like. You know can't go anywhere and escape this feeling of this tunnel. Yeah, sometimes it feels, you know yourself. Sometimes it just feels so claustrophobic at times you just wanna switch it off. You want to like escape from blindness, escape from disability, not have people stare at you for using your cane. Go out and just be, you know, just be me, just be Dave, not the blind guy, you know, without the whole room knowing and having to feel the effect of it.

Speaker 2:

It's almost like living and I'm speaking to you as a person who's also going through it, and I have been through it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, at this point I have just like light perception, but there's like two sort of like parts of us you know, working together and living together at one time, which is like the part of me that quite honestly, I don't, you know, I feel very at peace with my blindness and, quite honestly, I don't even know who I'd be or how I'd be without it, which is really interesting. And then you're right where there are these moments that we live, where it's like, you know, like this is hard right, like this moment that I'm experiencing and I'm like putting myself right in that ballroom where you were that night and I'm going geez, like that, that was hard, because it's like the dichotomy of, like the juxtaposition, I think, is the word actually, jacob, you're my word guy but like of like of being so, of experiencing such like a joyful experience.

Speaker 2:

Everybody around you is experiencing joy and you're sitting there, going and again like I don't want this to feel like therapy for people, but I just get it Like you just like, oh my God, this is my own piece of personal hell, you know.

Speaker 3:

But do you know what I think it is for me? Tell me, tell me, that's my biggest problem with it all is I'm like because, as I said to you before, I'm an empath, right. I'm so like thinking about other people's feelings all the time, right, that I often feel like I'm you know, we could be in a supermarket and I'm always like, am I in the way I'm stood here and am I in the way of people and I'm always worried about other people that it kind of it spoils it for me. But on the flip side of that because there is always a flip side, of course and this is works for Amy as well One of the coolest things is I'm at this kind of place now, when, even when I even have days like that, you know, the absolute worst day, where you, you know, distraught with it, I can now turn to poetry and put these feelings, the most you know dark and negative emotions, turn it into a piece of poetry, click a button and then that story and that poem is going to help somebody who needed to hear those words today and can relate to those feelings that I'm talking about.

Speaker 3:

So it's that, taking our, you know, greatest challenges in life and turn them into our biggest achievements. It's that flipping it into a positive, which is, you know, the thing that gets me through, because you know, and I can look at the times that I had, you know, when I was younger, and I can kind of go okay, I survived all that. Yeah, I can survive this. I know I can survive this. I know we'll get through. I know it won't last. I know these feelings will change.

Speaker 1:

So much of the pain comes from having an emotion or having a feeling and not being able to connect it to yourself or connect it to another person and feeling like you're like. I talked to people about this a lot, but it's like when you feel like you're a block in the flow of the energy of the universe, as opposed to a conduit of the flow of the energy of the universe.

Speaker 1:

And that's kind of what you're talking about when you're in the grocery store and you're worried you're in someone's way, you know you're blocking someone's flow. When you know you're at a party and everyone's having a good time and you're worried that however you're presenting yourself is blocking people's flow. And that feeling, and to push through that sentiment that you are a block or that you're an impediment to someone, and connect with them and continue to be a conduit of that flow of the energy in the world, via the poetry or via anything.

Speaker 2:

Anything is speaking, even just you talking with us today. I mean that's.

Speaker 1:

To be a conduit, to be a connect as opposed to a blockage. I think that's what brings people, I don't know, the most well-being, but that level of any time people are connecting. That's when people feel the most alive in connection. There's maybe a strange in the context of we feel the most alive when we are in connection with the flow of the universe. And when you're writing your poetry, you are connecting internal, emotional, pre-linguistic thoughts to language and then connecting to other people via that language. Yeah, there are, I'm trying to think the best way to say this, but in your emotional and literal connection with your wife, you've brought children into the world and your poetry is your child in a lot of ways and also your literal children are your children's way. You can disagree with the poetry. As a child I saw a little.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah but.

Speaker 2:

Why did he make a face?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a little, but it's okay.

Speaker 2:

It's not the playing, it's not the playing Got it.

Speaker 1:

But I know in a pre-recorded conversation that there was and please remind me, but there was a bit of hesitation in after your diagnosis and knowing that our P is genetic, do you bring children into the world at that point? And if you're comfortable, can we talk about that what it's like to have a genetic condition and having a child after the diagnosis.

Speaker 2:

And deciding right yeah.

Speaker 3:

So at the time of my diagnosis I knew very little about RP. I knew that it was genetic but we'd not gone through the whole kind of genetic counseling, genetic testing side of things. So it was when I was officially diagnosed we went through this process and that was when I had blood taken and then found out that the type that we've got in our family is what they call auto somal dominant, which means there's a clear trace and a wanting to chance every time a child is born that they're going to develop it. Now the type that I have normally doesn't present the first stages, which is a very slow, gradual night blindness from the early 20s, late teens, early 20s. So I probably had that night blindness aspect in my early 20s but didn't actually connect it with RP. It was very, very slight, just that kind of walking from a light space to a dim limit room and it'd take a couple of seconds longer than a normal sighted person for their eyes to adjust to the light. So I had that from my early 20s but didn't connect it to RP. And then, as I said, it was then a very sudden dip in my late 30s. So when we went through this process and then found out that it's auto somal dominant and is wanting to every time.

Speaker 3:

Austin had already been born. Obviously, ellie was at that stage. She was about seven years old. It obviously brought a lot of guilt. As far as I'm concerned, there's a lot of questions, a lot of conversations between me and Amy. We immediately said we weren't going to have any more children and I got that taken care of. But yeah, it's always been a guilt thing with me. What if?

Speaker 3:

And it took a few years for us to get to the stage where it inspires me to show Austin and Ellie all the things that they can do, despite low vision of blindness, if anything was to affect them when they're older. But also, I had a conversation with my local professor at my eye hospital in Manchester here who does the genetic counseling, and he said to me look, as far as genetic testing is concerned, the only good thing about genetic testing is to be able to tell someone that they haven't got it. If they're not showing any outward signs, why put that burden on them? You know the science to look out for. Let them live the lives and deal with them.

Speaker 3:

Because, looking back on my life, if someone had held me back and got me tested when I was younger, I probably never would have drove. When I drove for many years, I never would have maybe traveled the world in the way that I did, or maybe would have had a different life. And actually to be free of that burden and not let it affect me until it really, you know my life got to the point where I could no longer be in denial with it and no longer not let it affect me, I had to make changes in my life. Looking back on that, I wouldn't change that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what a tough decision, though right, to have made.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, really tough, and I think it's a personal decision for everyone. I don't think there's any right or wrong.

Speaker 3:

I think it's down to you guys and me and Amy have got that relationship where we just talk honestly and open about it, and we were on the same path and on the same page, I should say. And, as I said, luckily now. Well, no, I'm not going to tell the truth here. I do kind of use everything I do to inspire them and show them all the things you can do, but at the same time, naturally on the days when I'm struggling like, for example, the party that we were just talking about, or just a day where I'm having a bad eye day and really not getting a grip of things, I have this kind of thing in me going oh man, is this going to be something that they're going to have to face? And I feel guilty for that, thinking oh man, they're seeing me struggle and they're going to remember seeing me struggle when it's maybe their turn, and that's a bad feeling.

Speaker 1:

But they could also have their own experience of seeing you struggle and already start to work in their own minds of how to overcome whatever struggle you may be having in the moment.

Speaker 3:

And they'll have their own. That's another great way of looking at it.

Speaker 3:

And actually, if we look at the children of disabled parents, every child that I've met that comes from a disabled parent family are so well-rounded as people and I think it's so important. Obviously, my latest books, the children's series that I've done Austin's Amazing Adventures, with Austin being the main character that's about giving that representation within children's stories so they'd be better understood, and I think that's really important for kids to kind of I think most schools that you go to now there's always lots of children with additional needs and things like that. So I think having that kind of children who aren't affected by disability or additional needs, seeing these other kids and realizing these kids are just like them, is really important and I think for Austin and Ellie and my stepson Harvey and Louie, it's partly made them the people they are today being around us and my struggles and my challenges.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that we're not naming is that, if you are one with a disability, that you cannot live a beautiful, full life with a disability and I think that's the important thing to name here too is that deciding to be a mom and have my kids yes, it would. If they ended up with RP thinking right, there would be hardship, there would be struggle and also the opportunity to live a very meaningful and beautiful and full life, even though you also have a degenerative eye condition. And so, even if your kids God forbid end up with a degenerative disease look at the they're still going to have an opportunity to just have incredible, meaningful experiences. I just fully believe because look at your life right, and there isn't a life on the planet that doesn't experience moments of distraught moments of struggle, moments of hardship, it just has a show up.

Speaker 3:

Mental health can be passed down genetically, the struggles that we have. So we all have challenges and it could be disability, could be sight loss, it could be mental health. It could be lots of different things. No one goes through the life without facing personal and often crippling challenges and actually it's sometimes those things that make us and I'm happy now because I wouldn't change it. I'm so much happier because of this. As tough as it is, I wouldn't change it for the world.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I feel, I truly feel the exact same way Like I, just I wouldn't Let me tell you.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to tell you a little short story and you will get the analogy on this because it's gray, I love this right.

Speaker 3:

So my local park, about two minutes down the road from me, a couple of years ago now maybe about three, four years ago now me and Austin it was fall, as you call it, autumn as we say and we were going through the park and there was these actually it wasn't, it was Easter time, it was spring and there was these beautiful pink blossom trees and they kind of go almost like an archway along this path and the wind was blowing and all these pink blossom petals were forming like swirls all over the path. They were being blown up in the air like they were dancing. There was big swirls of them with the wind and there was all these parents in the park playing with the kids, and me and Austin were in this pink blossom, throwing it up in the air and having the best time of our lives, and all these parents in the park with the kids were completely oblivious. And there's something about like when you are losing your sight, how it makes you see more.

Speaker 3:

It makes you pay attention more and appreciate the beauty of the world around you so much more. And if I was fully sighted, I probably would have missed those moments. And these are the moments that I see every single day, and it's because of blindness.

Speaker 1:

This is like a totally, sometimes like the limitations, as you're saying. The limitations reveal things that you wouldn't see if everything's were like unbounded. And I'm like an observant orthodox Jew and I keep the Sabbath and everything like that, and there's a phrase among orthodox Jews where you can do more in six days than you could do in seven.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I know very well.

Speaker 1:

So because I don't work on Saturdays or the holidays, it forces you to get a lot more done during those six days. But I have felt so much more productive since observing the Sabbath than beforehand and there's just a level of like. Time is different yeah it's not like that.

Speaker 3:

What are you going to get done?

Speaker 1:

Definitely, and it's not the same thing as losing your vision. But I just see that there are gifts in boundaries and sometimes those boundaries are chosen and sometimes the boundaries are forced upon you. But you can gain things from boundaries regardless of what they are.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly it. That's beautifully said, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to know where you're at. No-transcript come to mind that you'd like to share.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, we're talking about the kind of writing poetry and how cathartic it can be and the experience of it. One of the things I've really loved doing, which I hope to do more of over the next kind of coming years, and it's kind of linked in with Austin's Amazing Adventures. Austin's Amazing Adventures, the children's book, which is a poetry story about a young visually impaired boy going to a mainstream school and the interactions he has, and it's about erasing those barriers that a lot of children with additional needs and disabilities kind of feel in mainstream schools. At the end of each book we've done this kind of section called Talking Points where we almost have these open-ended questions to kind of start the conversation so they can be used as part of lessons in schools and things like that. So I've been going into schools and then obviously speaking at events for adults and children, talking about my other books. But one of the things that I've been doing at the schools and these other events in Florida last year is I've been doing poetry workshops.

Speaker 3:

So one of the things I really love is going into groups of people, whether that be people affected by low vision, blindness, disability, whatever, or people with no experience of it, and teaching them my very simple method of writing poetry and getting them to express and talk about their own challenges and experiences.

Speaker 3:

And I've had groups of people and every time it works out the same way. I'll have groups of people who have never written piece of poetry before in their life, hate poetry don't even I, could never do it and they hear my story. That opens them up. They hear my poetry and it gets them talking about things that they wouldn't normally talk about. And by the end of it they've created these pieces, these beautiful short pieces of poetry, and they're talking about things that they've never spoken about. I've had children who have a severely autistic talking about their autism for the very first time. I've had people who have lost family members who've never really voiced it, expressing and talking about that. It's been absolutely crazy seeing these things and the way they've kind of developed and being in there guiding people and helping them create these pieces of poetry is just another incredible kind of section of what I yeah, you're helping people learn how to unblock themselves.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I'm doing as well at the moment, which I've just been doing, quite a lot of his writing for campaigns and commercials as well.

Speaker 1:

Oh cool.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, there's a watch you may have heard of called the Bradley Timepiece. I don't know if you've heard of that Not sure.

Speaker 1:

I'll look it up.

Speaker 3:

The Haxile Watch.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, with the ball the rotates around.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly, yeah, I've already written two commercials for that now. Oh, great which we've both on YouTube, One that just released the other day, which is really cool, and yeah, and obviously you know I've written for Apple and God, Audi and Kellogg's and Meta and yeah, it's just really, really cool.

Speaker 3:

There was nothing the other week and I don't know if you saw this. If not, you need to have a look online because it's so cool. There was a big Meta event I can't remember what it was called now For they just released the new the MetaQuest headset, metaquest 3 or something like that Like virtual reality thing and these glasses. They did this kind of, you know, like Apple does, where they have the launch of the products. Yeah, yeah, they had Meta one and it was Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, mark Zuckerberg was on stage in California somewhere and the video at the beginning you know of it all and I was on the video.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh, the used part of the MetaClip of that video, of that poem that you were talking about at the beginning. They used it so, like they had this event, that was broadcast all around the world, you know, on YouTube and online and then obviously on the big screens that Meta headquarters and that there was me, you know, on stage with Mark Zuckerberg, which is just really yeah, there's one of those moments you go wow, you know, did that just happen.

Speaker 1:

Did that just happen? I just want to. You know, not not everyone who finds their calling, finds their purpose, is going to get on stage with Mark Zuckerberg.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's weird. Or get onto a podcast with Kim and Jacob.

Speaker 1:

I'm just saying, but part of it is I just want to name that like someone who finds their purpose and meaning in life could be at any strata of civilization in society. You know, like wherever you are, you know who knows, who knows what the manifestations of finding yourself are going to be, but it does feel like, as an indication of in the ways in which you have found yourself, that it did land. You want stage with Mark Zuckerberg.

Speaker 3:

One last thing, and I want to add this because I think you'll really appreciate this little story. I've told this quite a few times, but I want you guys to hear it because I really love to get your take on this. Okay, this is something that happened to me in 2019. I did my first USA book tour along the East coast in 2019. And as part of that tour was that, in America, for about three and a half weeks, I was in Rhode Island doing two events at Rhode Island University.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, that's my alma mater, that's where I went to, that's where I got my bachelor's degree, uri. Oh, wow, okay, yes, that's the moment. Oh yeah, dave.

Speaker 3:

My gosh and I was doing two events, one in the afternoon, one in the evening, and the event was an hour of me telling my story, reading the poetry that goes with that, and then after that there was a Q and A and a book signing. So all the way through the first session, as I'm speaking, there was a guy in the room who was really kind of drawing my attention. This guy was in his late 20s, early 30s. He had like a high vis jacket on like a workman.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, like the orange, or yeah.

Speaker 3:

And there was something about him that was just kind of drawing my attention all the way through. So after the Q and A, when we're doing the book signing, there's a line of people and he comes up in the line and I said to him hi, what's your name? He said oh, my name's Derek. I said hi, derek, my name's Dave. I said what brings you here today? And he said oh, I was just diagnosed with RP two days ago.

Speaker 2:

Wow, oh my God, I'm getting a shot.

Speaker 3:

So I just went whoa right, okay. I said just do me a favor a second, just come here with me. And I took him out of the line and we sat at a table, held the line up and I sat at a table with him and just like tell me what's going on. And he said well, I said I went to the eye doctor. He said I thought I had cataracts. They looked into my eye and he said we think you've got this thing called retinitis pigmentosa. There's no treatment or cure. Your kids might have it.

Speaker 3:

We loaded all this information on him as they do, and he kind of walked out of this appointment with his head spinning. One minute is upset, next minute is angry. He's all this emotion going on. He goes home, he's kind of upset. So he starts researching retinitis pigmentosa online on his computer and up pops this piece of poetry and he reads this poem and as he's reading it and this is him telling me this, as he's reading it all this thing, all these things that had happened to him over the years of his life, started to make sense to him. Yeah, and he just kind of got really emotional. And anyway, that day his wife was in work. Oh, he was in work, and his wife called him and she said you're never going to believe this, but Dave Steele's in America. And not only is he in America, he's in Rhode Island. And he walked straight out of his work and he came straight to see me, oh wow.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to cry, and we're still friends to this day. I met him for the first time I was doing an event in Florida last year for Foundation Fighting Blindness, with. Amy came out and Austin came with me and he came and met us. So shout out to Derek, it was great. Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 2:

You know it's like people are going to find you, dave, find your poetry, your commercial, whatever it is, your books, our podcast, right when it's like magic, right when they need it.

Speaker 3:

Well, yet a couple of days ago I don't know if you know a couple of days ago it was a White Cane Awareness Day.

Speaker 2:

I did, yeah, I did know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. So I shared a poem that I wrote last year and I don't know if I've told you about this. I wrote a poem last year called A Cane's Perspective and the idea was it was talking about how we all go through this process of trying to come to terms to use an ability aid, and a lot of us don't use it as much as we should do. We have it folded up in our hands, we leave it at home, we're ashamed, we're embarrassed, we you know all this kind of thing we go through, but it's a process that not it's not talked about often enough and a lot of people you know really need to understand this, right at the beginning of their journey, decided to write a poem from the perspective of a mobility cane. So in the cane, in the poem.

Speaker 1:

It's the cane talking.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I shared it, you know, again for White Cane Day a couple of days ago and my phone has been going crazy since it's had. Now I think we're up to just short of 200,000 views on one post and it's been posted on a few different places. On one post on Facebook I think it's had like nearly 2,000 shares. I've had mobility instructors, O&M instructors, from all over the world saying they're printing out and passing it to their clients. I had a school teacher from a blind school message me last night and saying that she'd put it into Braille for all the students.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

All there and it's just. You know, those moments kind of just go wow, you know that's crazy. Did I read it to you?

Speaker 2:

No, why don't? Why I think that's a really beautiful place to sort of close is why don't?

Speaker 3:

you? Yeah. Do you want me to read it to you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd love that.

Speaker 3:

OK, yeah, let me read to you now. You'll like this. Ok, this is a Keynes perspective. Ok, you're not the only one who's felt embarrassed to be seen outside walking with me. This, for many, has always been a part of the whole process is. Together we will train, but in time you will realize you'll soon be proud again. I'm made to give you back the things that you may feel you've lost, like pride and independence, all the things that blindness cost. I'm not a sign of weakness. I'm a reason to be proud.

Speaker 3:

Alleviate anxiety whilst you are in a crowd. Sometimes I'm left behind or folded up inside your hand, but I'll be ready for you. I won't judge. I understand, I know. These things are natural. It's the way that people stare when you can still see some things, but for blindness, you prepare. You don't need to see nothing to be able to use me. That's not the way that blindness works. It fades so differently. I'm here to be a signal and a symbol that you're strong, a reason not to isolate, a reason to belong. So when you're feeling ready, I'll be with you, day or night. Unfold me, hold me confident and swipe me left to right. Eventually you'll come to terms. Our partnership remain. It's me and you forever. I am your mobility cane.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, I have like tears in my eyes.

Speaker 1:

Dave, if someone came and sat next to the 19-year-old you on that bench before you climbed up that tower and said this is the life you can have, even shows you images, pictures of it, your children, your career, you on stage with Mark Zuckerberg, really shows you your life and says the price for this life is losing your vision, how do you respond as that 19-year-old young man?

Speaker 3:

In a heartbeat. I'll take it.

Speaker 1:

I think so often when someone's in the midst of that adversity, they don't realize how they will lose something via the adversity, but they'll gain their life on the other side of it and I really hope our listeners who are going through adversity can just hear that if they hold on long enough and they continue to fight, they can gain their own life and a new life and perhaps a more life aligned to their core self on the other side.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Thank you, dave. So much for coming on. And yeah, it's been a real, real, real blessing.

Speaker 1:

OK, I'm going to end the recording now. Thank you so much. Ok, but I'm not hanging up, so thank you. Yeah, yeah, no. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If anything in today's episode spoke to you, please like, subscribe, rate and review. You can also help us grow by following us on Instagram and Facebook at Intuitive Choices Podcast. Most importantly, make sure to share today's episode with friends and family.

Speaker 2:

And if there's anybody that you know that you think would be a great guest on Intuitive Choices, please email us at intuitivechoicespodcastgmailcom. Finally, if you want to know more about our mental health practice, intuitive counseling and wellness, please check us out at intuitivecounselingoffillycom. Dear eyes, baby eyes.