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The Ultimate Adventure
 Among the many informative sessions offered at the VISIONS 2012 conference, one that’s sure to stand out, in terms of inspirational impact, will start at 9 a.m., Saturday, June 30. That’s when Erik Weihenmayer, best-known as the only blind person to summit Mount Everest, will take the stage for the General Session. Renowned as a speaker on the international circuit, the 43-year-old has regaled innumerable audiences with his tales of mountain-climbing, kayaking, skiing, paragliding and many other adventures – all despite going blind as a teenager. (For his full story, check out this profile.)But, as a spokesperson for the Foundation, Erik is also fully committed to its focus on treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases. And he encourages those affected by such diseases to live their lives with what he calls a “no barriers mindset.” Erik sat down for the following Q&A in late December. He spoke about his upbringing, dealing with adversity head-on and his great admiration for the Foundation and its hard-working researchers. Please recount what caused you to go blind. I was born legally blind, which most of the VISIONS audience will know means 20/200. I could never see really well, but I could see well enough to ride a bike and run around in the woods. It started getting worse in middle school. It’s a disease called juvenile retinoschisis, and I know that the Foundation is working hard with it as well as other retinal diseases like it, trying to find cures. I knew I’d be blind some day, but, as a kid, you’re not really thinking of the future; you’re very much in the present. I just put it off, denied it. And when I actually starting going blind, I made up excuses for why I couldn’t see as well or do the things I used to do as well, like play basketball. And then, one day, I woke up, and I was totally blind. It was like getting hit in the head with a sledgehammer. Then, a year or two later, you lost your mother? Yes, she died in a car accident when I was 16, a couple years after I went blind. She was a big advocate of mine – pushing me to read Braille, use a cane, get a guide dog. To put it in perspective, I’d rather go blind 10 times over than lose my mom. The pain of that is way harder than going blind. My dad had been a Marine fighter pilot in Vietnam. He did not live a sedentary lifestyle. And he was in the pharmaceutical business, which, at one point, took the whole family to Hong Kong. So I got that spark of adventure from him. After my mom died, we wanted to find a way to stick together as a family. My brothers and I would go on an adventure with Dad every summer. It started with the Inca Trail in Peru. That was really hard, learning how to hike, because I didn’t know anything about trekking poles. I was trying to use a long white cane. You can’t do that on a rocky trail with chaotic steps and rocks and different obstacles and narrow paths with big drop-offs. I stumbled my way through because I wanted to take part in the family trips. Year after year, we’d go somewhere else – Pakistan, New Guinea, really primitive places. Over time, I sort of painfully learned how to navigate in the wilderness. You also got into wrestling? I did it in high school, and loved it. It kept me super fit and enabled me to be part of a team. I think it’s crucial for every blind person to get out there and join a team. And not just a team of blind people – though that’s cool, too – but a team of sighted people. You figure out something you can do, some kind of club with a common interest that’s bigger than you and ties the team together. For me, it was wrestling. How did you get into climbing? I’d taken a summer class in computers at The Carroll Center for the Blind, in Massachusetts, which also had a recreational program. They’d take us out once a month to do activities – sailing, tandem-biking, cross country skiing. One weekend it was rock-climbing, and even though I couldn’t see, I could use my hands and my feet as my eyes and sort of problem-solve my way up the rock face. I took to it more than other activities. You’re using your body and brain to get up there. I thought that was the ultimate adventure. And your latest challenge is white water kayaking solo. How’d you get into that? I’m really interested in continuing to challenge myself in new ways. I’ve been climbing for a long time – over 20 years. I learned to ski. But kayaking – there’s a reason why no blind person has done it before; you’re riding an avalanche down a mountain. That’s what it feels like. The way it works is, I have a person behind me, talking to me via these radios, trying to guide me through the rapids and around holes and giant rocks. So it’s very precise, and you have to really be on it as a team. But it’s totally unpredictable. It’s even hard to know, as a blind person, what’s upstream and what’s downstream. And waves are coming in from every angle. The closest I can compare is, it’s like skiing moguls – with no pattern, though – and not being able to see them. At VISIONS, you’ll speak during the General Session Saturday morning. Is there something you want attendees to take away from your presentation? Yes, a couple things. One is, we’re all waiting for treatments and cures, and those will change and revolutionize our lives. Maybe not for me, because I don’t have my vision anymore; but for the younger generation. I look at my daughter and say, “There are plenty of struggles in life. You don’t need an extra one; you don’t need to go blind.” I wouldn’t change my life, but there’s no reason to be blind if medical science can cure that. But while some of us go through life as blind people, we can live with what I call a “no barriers” mindset. Sure, blindness is a barrier, a real physical barrier. My definition of what living means is to figure out how to innovate and persevere your way through barriers, and to develop those tools that will enable you to do that. Having strategies, using technology, being part of a team – it’s the way to approach adversity. You decide whether to see adversity as a thing that’s going to stop you in your tracks or as energy that you can capture and use to propel yourself to a new place. Is that why you’ve aligned yourself with the Foundation, which has been innovating and working as a team for more than 40 years? A hundred percent, yes. To figure out the cures and ways of stopping the progression of these diseases – it’s the hardest adversity you could embrace as a human being. You have to surround yourself with the smartest people – not only the smartest and the people with the most talent, but people who believe. So much of finding a cure and doing great things is your belief system; you see it being possible in the future. So a lot of it is tied to this no barriers mindset: You see the pitfalls, you see the obstacles, you know thousands of things that could turn you back, and you know that there’s a good chance that any of those things could turn you back at any time, but you keep going anyway. Speaking at other events and conferences, you’ve displayed a great sense of humor about the challenges you’ve faced, and, at times, you’ve been moved to tears. I think about some of the crazy, hard things that I’ve been a part of – you know, you’re really doubting yourself. As I said, there’s a million things that can turn you back, and you’re probably going to get turned back. And so I connect to those things when I speak, and I think about the unbelievable work and sacrifice it takes to get there – not just me, but really more for my team, the people who’ve helped me get up Everest and all Seven Summits worldwide. These people, they’re like the doctors, the scientists at the Foundation. They’re not blind themselves, but they’re devoting themselves to this cause that’s outside of themselves, to be a part of history and make something happen out of nothing. It’s really cool for me as a blind guy to climb mountains and do all these wild things, but most of my teams have had sight. That’s really impressive to me. That makes me emotional. |
