Playing the Piano without Arms

I wonder whether you have seen this video yet, from the China's Got Talent show.

(HT: Vit Z)




I had two immediate reactions to this video.
1. I liked Liu Wei's attitude. He explained that he had only two options: to die quickly, or to live wonderfully.

On the other hand, often we tend to get bogged down by much smaller problems, rather than thinking of them as an opportunity to 'live wonderfully'.

2. My second reaction was a new appreciation of all we can gain from the disabled. (Even as I typed that last statement, I stopped to collect my thoughts. Let me emphasise that we do not gain only from the disabled who have learnt to cope and 'live wonderfully.' I do not want it to sound like those who are unable to live independent, productive lives are therefore living wasted lives)

The flawed thinking widely accepted today is that people with disabilities are also a nuisance, and that we (the 'normal' people) have no obligation to permit them to live.

That might sound like I am being too harsh, but isn't that what is accepted every time a woman undergoes an ultrasound to pick up anomalies in the fetus she is carrying, with an intention to undergo an abortion if the child is flawed in any way. It seems that 91-93% of pregnancies in UK and Europe with a diagnosis of Down's Syndrome were terminated in 2006. And Down's syndrome is one of the milder disabilities....many of the children I meet are the sweetest, most good-natured, friendly kids in the wards. Thousands of children are killed everyday for the most innocuous deformities. (One of  the most deadly deformities that has killed millions of children is the fatal flaw of being a girl child!)

(In an aside, to Anugrah and Cheryl, when I mentioned the antenatal ultrasound findings to one of the neonatologists here, he said, "Why wasn't this picked up earlier? Then something could have been done about it...." He meant, of course, what is euphemistically referred to in India as Medical Termination of Pregnancy)

So read this article, No Wasted Lives, which also contains this great question....“Why would God make a life and not do anything with it?”.