Within Reason - #157 How a Blind Man Sees the World - Tommy Edison

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

For early, ad-free access to videos, and to support the channel, subscribe to my Substack: https://www.alexoconnor.com.To donate to my PayPal (thank you): http://www.paypal.me/cosmicskeptic.@TommyEdisonXP is a blind YouTuber and radio presenter. He got his start online as the “Blind Film Critic”, reviewing movies despite being unable to see them, and thereby offering a unique angle on their storytelling.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 - Being a Blind YouTuber2:03 - How Do You Understand Blindness If You Are Blind From Birth?4:26 - Being Blind in School7:20 - Tommy’s Early Life12:11 - Has Life Become More Accessible For the Blind?19:35 - How Vision is Embedded in Our Language21:35 - How Does A Blind Person Watch A Movie?25:40 - What Does Tommy Know About Colour?27:51 - Mary’s Room32:16 - Can A Blind Person Play Video Games?35:39 - The Questions People Are Too Afraid to Ask41:42 - How Does A Blind Person Understand Attractiveness?44:27 - What Can We Make More Accessible?48:24 - Why Electric Cars Aren’t Best For Everyone51:33 - Is Offering Help Patronising?54:35 - What Can Tommy Do That People Think He Can’t?58:32 - Why Tommy Chooses Joy - CONNECTMy Website: https://www.alexoconnor.comSOCIAL LINKS:Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cosmicskepticFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/cosmicskepticInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/cosmicskepticTikTok: @CosmicSkeptic - CONTACTBusiness email: [e-mail] enquiries: [e-mail]

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Perfect. Perfect. All right. Just making it look nice. Thank you, sir. Yeah. This is a great Ben Churchill, everybody. Yes.

That's a great Ben Churchill. He makes it all. He's the best, man. If you love him. Yeah, I must say it's quite an interesting career path that you have being a YouTuber, which is quite a visual platform, but you've managed to develop quite the audience on that platform. Is it quite a difficult thing to do? it I mean it was it was sort of intimidating in the beginning because I didn't know

when I was a kid I was afraid of the camera as a young as a young person even into my teenage years into my 20s and stuff I was never really a fan of the camera and um I you know working with my friend ben Churchill he sort of got me over my fear of the camera he was doing a project a long time ago and he wanted to interview me about some things and so I was like that was the first time was really on camera. I mean, I'd been on television a couple of times before, and it was intimidating and scary, but Ben sort of got me through it, you know, and just to be sitting here and having a conversation, and then I concentrate more on the conversation, not on the camera. And so that's how I kind of get comfortable, because a sighted person would see it,

right, and I don't see the camera. So I can simply forget it, and I don't see the lights. I don't see any of the stuff. So I concentrate on the conversation, and all of a sudden, camera's gone. Yeah. Well, Tommy Edison, welcome, welcome to the show. It's an absolute privilege to have you here. I have been just such a fan of the videos that you put out for many, many years. I just told you before we started. And I see you as a bit of a sort of YouTube legend and your content is dedicated to helping people understand what it's like to live as a blind person, like all of the sort of intricacies and strange things that nobody ever would have thought of that you sort of dive into. So thank you so much for being here.

Well, thanks so much for having me. It's a thrill to be on your show. It really is. So tell me how a person who is blind from birth finds out that they're blind and how that can be explained to somebody at a young age. It's something that it's almost sort of vague to me because it just kind of happened naturally. But there were things that would happen. Like my sisters could do things that I could not. I learned how to ride a bike.

My mom and dad wanted me to do all the things that my sisters did. I have three sisters. And so they wanted me to be out in the neighborhood playing as well. And so I did. I learned how to ride a bike at a very early age. I was riding around the neighborhood, and it was kind of fun. You know, and I just did a lot of the things that they did. I went to public school.

But just, you know, to find out that I was a blind person, I just noticed there were things that people could do in that I couldn't. and that I had to understand that, well, they can see and you can't. And, you know, but that's the only difference. Otherwise, you know, my cognitive skills, everything else is just fine, but I just can't see. And that's kind of the way it was treated. Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, when you started to notice these differences,

given that presumably it was a little difficult to understand exactly why or what those differences were. Was it something you, like, cared about? Were you upset? Were you annoyed? Or was it just kind of a bit of a sort of a strange thing that didn't sort of bother you too much? No, I think it bugged me a bit. I think because I couldn't do things that other kids did. And I always felt like a victim. You know, why me? Why, why, why? This is awful. And it really came to a head when in the States here at 16 to get your driver's license. So to see all my friends get their driver's license wasn't so bad. But to see people younger than me get it, you know, after a couple years, sort of broke my heart. I was like, wow, this thing is really, you know, this is it, kid. This is how your life is now.

And, you know, it took a lot of getting used to. It took a lot of time to accept it, to really fully accept it. For a lot of my life, all I ever wanted to do was C, because I figured that would solve all of my problems, but vision would just give me new problems that I never had before. Yeah, that's true. suppose. I'm intrigued as to how things were back then. I mean, you have spoken about how your parents sent you to a school that wasn't, it wasn't like a school for blind people, it wasn't a school for, it wasn't any kind of special school in that way, but maybe this was at a time when

blindness was less understood. Certainly things were less accessible. Like, compared to how the world is today, they're still going to be challenges, but what was it like? I mean, was it difficult being at school and this kind of stuff, like accessibility-wise? Did other people kind of understand and make accommodations or, like, just tell me what that was like. Yeah, so I had to get books in Braille. And so it was tough for the teachers because they had to plan their curriculum very early so that they could get a book made so that I could be able to follow along with the class. Sure. And so, like, for example, a geography or geometry book had like raised line, drawings in it and things that I could, you know, feel a triangle or a right angler and I saw

sleep, you know, parallelogram or rhombus or any of those things. And so there was, you know, and I, every day I had a Braille teacher. So what she would do is go over my homework that I had done for class and right over top of it in print so a teacher could read it and then grade it. So I spent time with her every day. I think it was like four or five days a week. And so that was one of the things that I did that was different than all the other kids. But the kids were really nice and, you know, everybody learned how to do side of guide and, you know, it was, I got around pretty well. I didn't really start using a cane until I was maybe a bit older. I think in sort of middle school, you know, on 11, 12, 13, somewhere in there. I began some cane travel, you know,

in school. But kids were really, kids were very accommodating. I mean, they were creeps in. I know, there are people who are going to just cause trouble just because they can. But for the most part, I think school was a pretty good experience. It was, you know, as I say, it was tricky and it was lonely sometimes. But I did have friends and there were people that, you know, I could hang around but then goof off with and, you know, just be a kid with. Yeah. So it was very nice. And, you know, and I really did do all the stuff that the other kids did.

You know, I learned out to swim. you know, we went to the beach, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So, you know, it was pretty good. I don't, you know, I, you know, I think I forgot a lot of my childhood because it was sort of unpleasant, but, you know, it was a struggle, but, look, it worked out okay. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I came out pretty, I came out all right.

Yes. Yeah, I think that's certainly true. I wonder. Sure. If you, I mean, you've got quite a unique sort of job at the moment. I mean, being the blind film critic and making sort of educational videos and giving talks and that kind of stuff, did you have any idea that that was something you might want to do when you were younger or did you have other sort of career aspirations? Was it always to do with, I know you worked in radio for a time. Like, what did you want to do back then? I wanted to do two things. I wanted to be in a rock and roll group or be on the radio playing rock and roll records. but I love pop music. I just, from the first moment I heard it, I just fell in love. I was just enamored.

I said, I want to do this. And I heard the radio too, and people just sounded like they were having such a good time and playing all this great music. And that seemed like the job for me. And, you know, people discourage me from it all the time. You can't do this. How are you going to be able to do it?

But the craziest part is that I did the traffic. I was like a travel reporter. So, yeah, I did all the highways and stuff all around Connecticut where I grew up. And I held that job for 19, nearly 20 years. Yeah. And that it blows people's mind because they go, you've never even seen the traffic, but I know what it is.

And I, you know, and I know my way around Connecticut like the back of my hand. I could tell you how to get pretty much to any town or city in Connecticut. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. I remember hearing you talk about, it was it your first job at some kind of like radio station where, And the reason I'm interested is because I heard you give a talk about this once, and it was in the context of, like, accessibility. And you talked about how you, you kind of took this thing, which would seem like a really difficult thing for a blind person to do, which is, like, find the right records and play them at the right time and put in the right ads at the right time. And you're sort of in this room surrounded by, I don't know if it would have been like records or CDs or some kind of physical media.

and developing a method for, like, navigating that. It was incredible. So there was a giant rack of compact discs on the back wall of the radio studio I worked at. It was a jazz station. And they were in rows of 64. And so I learned that to count by 64. So, like, 1 to 64, 65 to 128, 128, 129 to 192, 193 to 257, and so on and so forth. I still remember that from all these years, you imagine.

but yeah so that was how i could keep track of where the where the CDs went because each one was numbered and so that's how i could do that and then what i would do is that because there was no accessibility in those days it just didn't exist so i would have family members read over the list of songs that i was that i was supposed to play that night the track number the disc number the title and the artist so this way i knew what track i had to play and then i knew where it was so i could go put it away in the you back in the rack. And then all the little station announcements, I'd just copied those over,

and every time there was a new one, I'd just copy that. And I did it all by myself. And it worked out really well. It was great fun. I had a wonderful time, and it's the best music I've ever played on the radio. And it was a big secret.

No one knew I was a blind person. That was part of the fun of it, too. I hated playing sight. Yeah. And at some point, you finally let people know, right? Like at some point you said, uh, is someone going to interview you or something and you kind of like came out as, as a blind guy? That's exactly right. Very good. You do know this stuff. Yeah, we were doing,

I was working, um, with a friend of mine of John Harper and we used to go out and talk to kids at schools. And of course, you know, I'm just me and I don't think about my blindness terribly often. At least I wasn't in those days. And the kids were asking me lots of questions and I was like, Huh, okay. And we would bring back tape and play the kids. Oh, good morning, John and Tommy, stuff like that. And a reporter came from one of the local papers and wanted to do a piece on our school visits. And then she found out that there was a blind traffic reporter on the radio. And so Harper wanted to read the story. And I was like, I don't know, dude, this is the biggest secret. I've never told anybody this. He's like, I'll take good care of you, I promise. And I said, okay. And so he read the article and talked about me being a blind person. And it was funny because from that day forward, I mean, you can't tell a radio audience the entire audience the same thing at the same time because they're not all tuned in. So there were people on my last day, they let me say goodbye at that job. And there were people on my last day that went, you're a blind person. I had no idea. So it was very strange, but I hit him plain sight for a very long time.

And it was, yeah, it was crazy. It was a lot of fun, though. It was great fun. The hours were strange. But I just, the thrill of being on the radio was so good. Yeah, I bet. You said a second ago, accessibility was kind of a thing that didn't exist back then or something like that. What kind of time period are we talking about? And do you mean specifically in this industry or do you just mean like across the board? No, I think I made across the board. So I started my radio career began in 1987.

and, you know, there were no braille printers for the computer. That wasn't really a computer yet. You know, there was a basic Mac, like, you know, and there were, well, the IBM 386 and 46 didn't come out to the early 90s. Yeah. And so, yeah, there was, there was really no way to do, to get, to produce Braille. I had to do it myself. And so I did.

And, like, I could just learn the weather forecast and stuff like that. And then I had a Braille watch until time. So I knew where I was in the hour. But that was about all that accessibility was in those days. It was a word that didn't exist. Yeah. And things have changed a bit now. I mean, I know they've changed a lot now,

but I'm kind of particularly interested in technology, in that, like, presumably as time went on, technology after the invention of the personal computer and the iPhone and all of this kind of, of stuff, at some point you start to notice that this stuff becomes more accessible. But I'm thinking in the past sort of five or ten years with the development of artificial intelligence and these like this crazy upswing in like chatbot technology and chess computers and stuff, is there also a considerable technological upswing in like accessibility? Well, yeah, that came earlier.

So I got my first computer in 1997. It was a Mac Performance 6400, and there was a software that you could buy for it called Outspoken. And it was a screen reader. It was a basic screen reader, but it was pretty good. And it allowed me to read, like, you know, radio trade publications and things like that, music charts, just articles and stuff that I would never have had access to before.

And then it all changed again in 2004. That's when Apple started to include voiceover on every single product they made, everything from 2004 forward. And that was a game changer for me. And I remember when the iPhone came out in 07, I was like, I am stuck. This is never going to wear it. It's a screen. I can't, I don't know how they're going to do this. And two years later, the iPhone 3GS came out and I couldn't believe it. I remember I brought one home from the store and I went, what have I done? And then I plugged it into the computer and it all just started to come together. And I learned the iPhone one thing at a time. I learned how to make a call first.

I learned how to text, learn where the keyboard wasn't out of type. Just slowly, slowly, one thing at a time. And I love it. It's opened up a world to me that I've never had access to before. I moved to California at one time back in 2016. And I actually used the iPhone to help me learn mobility to get around, you know, with walking directions. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. And so, you know, it was a little wonky. I, you know, I bumped into a few things along the way, but I learned fairly quickly and became a really good Cain traveler out there. So, but the technology has been amazing.

It really, it's, it's just, I guess that there's a lot of AI technology too right now that they're trying to use, you know, for descriptive things and things. But I don't know. It's just, you know, a lot of times AI can be wrong or it can be a little misleading. So I try and say, away from it as much as I can. I mean, look, it's a tool and I use it for help and things like that. But as far as for accessibility, I think I'd rather use what I have. Yeah. Because it all works. You know what I mean?

Sure. That's interesting because I just sort of, I think people might assume that because of how technology is just exploding with artificial intelligence that in this context of accessibility, the same thing must be happening. But I suppose one of the most important things is like familiarity. Like, what can you trust? What do you know definitely? works and isn't going to sort of lead you astray, and AI can do that sometimes. So maybe it's like a trust thing. Absolutely. Yeah. And I trust, you know, and I trust the iPhone. I trust what I can read on it and stuff. And, you know, when I'm doing research for things, I'll generally start, you know, on the web and then I'll go to AI for, you know, use chatGBT to give me some other directions to

look. And then I go back to looking on the web. You know, I just use it as sort of a pointer. How does that work with a, like you've got your sort of iPhone 3GS. And like you say, it's like a big screen and three buttons. And you want to learn how to make a phone call. Is it like, is it like a voice command thing? Do you sort of figure out where to press on the screen and there's some kind of response that lets you know you've tapped on the right thing? Like how, how practically does that work? So the way the iPhone works is if I touch something once it tells me what it is. If I touch it twice, it'll perform the action or open it. So for example, if I want to go to mess, in the upper left hand corner of the iPhone, right?

So I go to that and then I can look at see who's unread up in the top left corner. And if I want to respond to them, I can just tap on it, go to the bottom, read their most current message. And then I can respond to it. Now, I'm a lousy typist on the iPhone. I'm not very good. So I dictate. And then I correct it afterwards. And so that's kind of how I do it.

But that's, you know, I can look at everything. I can look at the weather. I can look at stocks. I can look at the news. I can look at my email. Just everything. Just touch it once and it tells me what it is and touch it twice and it performs the action. We'll get back to the show in just a moment.

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Yeah. I noticed that, like, I was thinking, when I knew I was going to be speaking to you, I noticed, I started to notice the extent to which our language is just embedded with terms about site. Like you say things, like you were just saying how you could read your text or you could see this. I said a second ago I was like, oh, I could see that as like a way of saying I understand. People say, see it from my perspective. People say, look, man, and then they'll say something else. Like, is that kind of annoying? Is that like noticeable? Or is that just such a common turn of phrase that it sort of just means like something totally different now? No, it's so common.

That's a thing. And people are funny because they say, you know, did you see, oh, pardon me, you listen to you. And I always say, look, I don't expect you to change the way you talk for me. So I don't want you to change the way you talk. You know, in other words, I don't use all those words. I just use see, look, watch us like everybody else. Because it's all part of the vernacular. It's all part of everything that we say. And, you know, what Stevie Wonder said saying very cool one time. Somebody said, you know, it's too bad you can't see me. And Steve Yon, and I've still on this line. I love it. He goes, I can see you with my heart. Isn't that great? Yeah. It's lovely. But you don't need your eyes to see somebody, right? You can experience them. You can listen to them. You can, you know, you have four more senses. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I, so if you were, I mean, you're also the blind film critic, which is a really cool idea. Presumably you would, you would say you watch a film. Absolutely. Certainly. Because you would too. You know, I'm not going to listen to the movies. And no one talks like that.

Mm-hmm. So, but yeah, that's, I mean, and when we started that project, those, you know, people, you can't see a movie, you can't watch movies, but it's just, it's just, it's just language, that's all. Yeah, so tell me a little bit about how someone who's blind watches a movie. How does that work? So what I pay attention to is the story, the way the, the way it's acted, the sound, all the sound effects that they use, the music helps to tell the story to. you know like an action movie doesn't really work particularly well for me you know die hard is a sort of separate animal but generally like you know predator might not be terribly good for me or you know maybe the Superman movies or you know i don't even know what's current you know i'm not a big fan of the movies too much anymore but yeah you know but the action stuff really

doesn't because there's long five six seven minute pieces but nobody says the thing and and i get lost and i just get you know i want to go to sleep Yeah. So I definitely stay away for that. But I like the rom-coms and stuff. And I like, you know, movies that have good drama and things like that. Yeah. And, you know, it's wonderful because that's what the script is for to tell the story

and to all that character development. So I really do feel like I don't miss terribly much for a movie. Like, I always talk about Goodfellas. It's one of my very favorite films of all time. And I insist that if I just play the oil, like if you fell from the sky, and I'd never heard of this before and I put headphones on and you and said, here, listen to this for a little while,

go take this ride. I don't think you'd miss much if you couldn't see it. I really don't. Sure. Maybe I should give that. You know, I've never actually seen Goodfellas. I really would like to.

I'm not a massive movie person, and it's one that's definitely on the list. Maybe I should give that a go. I could maybe just listen to it and let you know how I get on. Oh, I would love that if you did that because I've said this for years. I don't think anybody's ever tried it.

If you were willing to, I'd love to hear the result. That would be really fun, I think. I don't think you'd miss much. I can, then I can watch it back and let you know. I think people might assume that you're watching with, like some films have, I don't know what you call it, but like an accessibility thing where there's like a voice that describes what's happening on screen. Do you watch films in that way too? Generally not.

No, I prefer them without the description. Now, it can be helpful. There's, um, um, um, You know, there was an old Daredevil show. There was the old movie, right? And then they did a Netflix show. And they had, I tried to watch it without audio description. I was completely lost.

But the audio description really helped because, you know, they're flashing back and forth, you know, to when Daredevil was a kid or something like that. And so that audio description really does help. But a lot of times I think it's a little much. You know, sometimes there can be too much description. And they get into color and things like that, which I don't particularly, you know, I know what color is. I hear all about it, but I just don't know what it is.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's a double-edged sword. I think it kind of, I was interested in it because if so much of what you're getting from a movie is based on how somebody is describing what's on screen, then like your enjoyment is going to be as much to do with the decisions. of that person who's doing the describing than it is of like the movie maker you know it's like yeah if you read a good book about a historical event the thing that becomes interesting is the way that the person is writing about it more than just the event itself and you kind of turn films into that like movies into that by making them dependent on a on a good description but yeah i suppose that's kind of maybe that's a little bit um ironic for a person blind from birth at least to

switch on the audio description of a film and they're talking about how the, you know, the sky is blue. And it's like, well, very, they're helpful. Thank you very much. Well, I mean, I know that a blue sky means it's sunny out and there's no clouds and all. Like, I do. I know all that. But, you know, somebody's, the color of someone's clothing or saying, if it's not terribly important of the plot, I don't think I need to know about that. Yeah, sure. That's fair enough. I think, um, you said before we started that I can sort of ask you anything about being blind. And I think, you know, people always are careful and they don't want to ask you things that are either annoying or offensive or, I mean, one of my biggest fears as an interview

all the time is asking guests things which are just boring because they talk about them all the time. But I must ask you to tell me basically everything that you know about color. I have to do it. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what I know about color. I know that, you know, red is fire. Red is also you know, it's hot. Like, and there's, it's very eye-catching. I know that, for example, Coca-Cola, I think, is red, right? The bottle of the can of Coca-Cola is red. So I know that.

I know being in the red is a good thing. No, being in the red is a bad thing. Being in the black is a good thing. The backwards. But, you know, I know blue. We did a video about this a long time ago, and I talked about how I couldn't understand how the ocean and the sky could be the same color.

Yeah. But they can. But you see, one of the, there's so much. texture with color. That's one of the things that I think I've learned in the past few years. There's a lot of different texture with color. So things can have the same color but look different just by the different textures and things that sort of go into it. But what else do I know about color. White is the absence of all color and black is all cars mush together. I think that's right. It's the opposite. Other way around, yeah. Other way around. Okay. Excuse me. Forgive me.

But yeah, what else? I know that like yellow is a nice bright color. You know, the sunshine sometimes can have a sort of a yellow feel to it. Yeah. What else do I know about color? You know, orange? I joke that nothing rhymes with orange. And I found that a real orange was an actual, like the orange fruit is the color orange.

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I think, I might be mistaken about this, but I think there was a tree, which was called the orange tree, and both the color and the fruit are named after that tree, or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. But I think what's clear is that when asked about color, you are sort of giving cultural associations, You know, you might talk about blues, music, or how, or things that you just know from

what other people have said. You know that the sky is blue, but what on earth does, does that mean? And like, the reason I'm particularly interested in this is, you know, I have a philosophy show. And we talk all the time about consciousness and what it means to, to be alive and to have experiences of the world. And typically, when people are asked to define consciousness, they find it really difficult. And they say things like, well, it's the redness of red, you know, it's the, but they do also say, like, it's the sound of a violin, or it's the feeling of the wind on your skin or that kind of stuff. And there's a big debate in philosophy as to like the extent to which consciousness and experience will ever just be sort of scientifically reduced to just being explained as activity happening in your brain.

And one of the most important, like, thought experiments that have been proposed on this line is to imagine somebody who spends their entire life not experiencing colour. It's called Mary's Room. It's this idea of Mary being in a room and it's all black and white. There's no colour, basically. And learns everything there is to learn about colour. Like, learns, like, reads everything there is to read, learns about the science of the eye, learns about, like, neuroscience and everything like that. And learns everything that. And learns everything. that even in principle it would be possible to ever learn about colour. And at the end of her life, she steps outside and she looks up and she sees blue for the first time. You know, has she learned something new? And most people say, yeah, it feels like she would learn something new, which is like what it's like to see the blueness. And this is used as an argument that whatever color is, it's not, or whatever experiences and consciousness is by extension, it's not something that will ever be just reducible to scientific explanation. And I just wanted to know what you think about, like, people presumably have tried over and over again to tell you what colour is. They'll be like,

oh, it's kind of like flavor for a food, how like, you know, toothpaste and a mint leaf can kind of taste the same, even though they're totally different. Or they say, maybe it's a bit like sort of sound and presumably it gives you some kind of some grip on what they're talking about, but do you feel as though there would ever be, even in the future, some kind of description or some kind of series of words that might make you go, aha, now I know what you're talking about? Or do you think it is just forever out of your grasp? I think it's forever out of my grasp. I mean, as I say, the marriage room thing is fascinating to me because yeah, she can go see that color, but she doesn't know what it is.

So, for example, I think if I got sight right now, I wouldn't know what it was. And I've heard about all these things. I could see a blue, you know, you can show me, well, that's a blue, what colors that sky right there? And I'd be like, I don't know. Yeah. You know, it would be very strange. So I don't think, one of the parallels I'd like to make is that it would be like trying

to explain to somebody who's never heard before what the ocean sounds like or what the birds sound like. You would never be able to describe that to a deaf person. You couldn't. Or what it sounds like when a giant, you know, when a big jumbo jet flies overhead or, you know, a helicopter or anything. Fireworks. You know, I think if you, that's how I look at color, trying to explain to someone who's deaf what all those things sound like, what my world sounds like. Yeah.

And I, yeah, like I love it. Like I love being outside and listen to the birds because it's just this natural stereo. It sounds great. They're all flying around and making all their noise and stuff. And I just am fascinated by it. I love it. Yeah. But that's all it is to me.

It's just sad. But you could never, a deaf person could, like, how would you ever explain? Again, you could hear about what all these things are and what they, you know, you could sort of describe what you think they might sound like. But to bring that person out of Mary's room and have them listen, they wouldn't know what was going on. Yeah. I mean, I think I agree with you. but it's it's difficult to to know for sure i i'm interested if as i say like people have probably

tried again and again to to sort of explain different concepts you it must kind of get a bit annoying at times i just wonder are there are there any like are there any kinds of attempts that you found particularly interesting or like how that has kind of taught me something new and are there any that i like your least favorite that people sort of say all the time that are kind of or or that do nothing for you. You know, I'm just intrigued just to how people approach that kind of topic. Yeah, people, people do try to explain color. And I just, I guess I sort of tune out when they explain lots of visual things.

For example, like a rock video, you know, or a video game. I don't understand that. I just don't get it. Yeah. You know, people try and explain it and I just don't have a clue. And so I just sort of tune out. Yeah. You know, it's like they're speaking Portuguese.

Yeah. I'd not thought about the concept of... Right, right. I'd not thought about the concept of a video game before, because presumably you could kind of play a video game and that someone could tell you what's happening on the screen, or there could be some kind of input, like, response from the buttons you're pressing.

But it would be difficult to understand how that's different from just, like, an interactive story or something, right? Is that the kind of thing you're getting at with the sort of how strange it is? I'd never thought about video games before as a concept for a blind person. I mean, like a game like Grand Theft Auto, I think I understand because you're just driving around and committing crimes and, you know, squirt around and, you know, doing that. Like, I get that. But something like World of Warcraft or something, I'd no idea. Because you're in these different worlds.

there's different creatures. Yeah. You know, and there's all sorts of games. Like, I just don't have a clue. I get completely lost. Yeah. It's, I guess, I guess there's, and video games are so visual,

something like Tetris or something would be essentially unplayable, I imagine. How, have you ever, are there other games that you do play or do enjoy playing? I don't mean like sport. I mean, like, I don't know, like something like chess or something you ever give. that ago, presumably you'd have to have a pretty good memory to even play a, play a game

very efficiently. Yeah, I never really got into chess. I, people have talked about it, but I just, you know, I sort of missed that train. But as a kid, we had, you know, there was an organization called The Lighthouse for the Blind and there's, they're all over the U.S. And they had made regular, you know, board games into Braille. So like, I had a Braille monopoly, which I loved. That was great fun. you know, in community chess and chance and all that stuff. And it was just big squares on the board. There was braille to tell you each street, you know, when you were in jail and the just visiting side.

So, you know, I enjoyed that. That was fun, but, and I like trivia a lot. I love, you know, music trivia. I'm, you know, I'm very good with music trivia. And just general, you know, just general knowledge, you know, trivia. I like to think I'm okay. Like, you know, a trivia night is I'm always pretty good at those. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that too.

I've asked you so far about video games and about colour and some of the more sort of obvious questions that people have. Are there questions that you sense people are afraid to ask you about that, I don't know, maybe they shouldn't be so afraid. Or maybe they should be typically afraid, but you're happy to answer. But what do you think is the question that most people want to know, but most people feel it's either offensive or inappropriate or something to ask you? On the internet, when we started the Tommy Edison experience, one of the questions that came in, now, it's a question that had never been asked to me in real life. No one has ever asked me this question in person, ever, ever, ever. But when you're in front of a keyboard, you can ask anything you like. And the nuttyest question I thought was, how do you know when to stop wiping in the bathroom?

Right? No one's ever asked me that question ever. But now on video, boom. weird and there's loads of them just a bunch of people wanted to know um i i found that very strange but it was yeah i guess did you did you answer it did you do a video about i did yeah we did a video about it yeah and i just you know i probably use a little too much you know but that's that's how it works safety first you know yeah the funny thing i thought about that was though that no one ever asked me how do i know when to stop wiping my face after i've eaten like a like a

like a powdered sugar donut you know yeah yeah yeah yeah It's so funny as well, because, like, you know, you're this wonderful educational resource, and it's an opportunity for people to learn about ways to make life easier for blind people. They could ask you, you know, how do you like to be addressed or, you know, how can I help you if I see someone struggling? But no, they decided that they wanted to know, you know, that that's the burning question. You know, that's what's important to them is how you know when to stop wiping. That's brilliant, isn't it? I think it says something about the nature of the internet.

Yeah, well, it's that classic thing, isn't it? It's like you could show, you know, take some, you know, historical figure, take Thomas Jefferson and show him the internet. And he'd be like, wow, so you have this device in your pocket where you can learn about every single discipline and you can teach yourself Latin and Greek and you can do it for free from your bit. And you're like, yeah, and we just use it to like, you know, send memes to each other and like waste our time, you know. But that's how it is. But I think people find your videos entertaining and engaging for that reason because you're willing to answer the stuff that's besides just being like useful or whatever. It's also interesting. Like the life that you live is is interesting to many people because there are ways in which they wouldn't have thought,

wouldn't have thought about that you have to live in totally different ways. Are there any other like sort of unexpected things which come up in your daily life, which when you tell. people about, they go, oh, of course, yeah, I hadn't thought about that. One of the questions that guests asked a lot is, so if I go out, for example, in the evening, right, but go out for dinner or something like that by myself, yeah, some will invariably ask, how'd you get here? What did you drive? I go, no, yeah, right. Oh, of course you did. I feel so stupid. Excuse me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it makes me laugh every time. Yeah, I guess there are some, some more, more obvious.

questions than others, right? But like, do you think, do people, do people just, I, I, make a YouTube channel where people are commenting all the time, but do people just like in your real life, just like in the street, in a bar or something? Do they just feel they have the right to ask you questions about blindness just because you're blind? And is that kind of annoying? Not at all. No, I love it. Because again, I'm, I'm sort of an educator in a sense, because I am, there's not a lot of people that are blinds his birth. There's a lot of people. people that had losing their sight due to things like retinitis pigmentosa and other degenerative diseases. But somebody who blinds his birth is a real, you know, people are fascinated by,

how do you do just, how do you get around? How do you, how do you navigate life? How do you get dressed in the morning? Yeah. You know, people, you're always so well put together. How do you, I'm like, I don't know, I just sort of pick up my clothes and fix my hair and off I go. Yeah. Some people might even ask like, you know, like, you know, like, why? why get dressed in the morning? Like, when you get dressed to go outside, is it because, I mean, I was thinking about this, again, like, when I've been,

anytime I'm about to speak to someone interesting, everything I'm doing in my life just, it raises questions about whatever I'm about to talk to someone about. And I remember thinking to myself, like, when it came to sort of getting dressed, I thought, if I were blind and blind from birth, you know, like, there's this classic thing where if you live in a house and you're getting change

and you can't be bothered to close the curtain. So, you know, my neighbors have probably seen me naked. And it's like, oh, that would be really embarrassing if they saw me. And it suddenly struck me, like, is that something that you would care about? Like, would you be, like, embarrassed by nakedness to even understand, like, why that would make a difference or be a problem? Like, you know, if somebody said, hey, man, like, you know, I can see you in the shower or something, would you just be like, oh, I'm told that something which societally is not supposed to go down? or would you feel a kind of embarrassment? You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah, I'd definitely be embarrassed. I would be mortified. Because nobody else is walking around naked. So, you know, I'm going to wear clothes just like everybody else. And, you know, I'm no, you know, I'm no Adonis. You know what I mean? I'm not, you know. I mean, I look good.

You know, I look nice. But, you know, I don't think I want to be naked for the world. So, yeah, I keep the curtains closed. and stuff. I'm always very concerned about that because I don't want to, you know, I always keep the kids in my house closed because I don't want people looking in. I don't want you to see what I do. That's not for you. That's for me. This is my house. What's your concept of terms like beautiful and ugly as pertains to like, you know, objects as pertains to houses? Like, would you walk into a room and say, this is a beautiful room based

on like the way that you experience the room and then of course people as well like when people say that person's beautiful or that person's ugly does that like mean anything to you well yeah so let's start with the walking into a place so I bought a house in 2002 and I walked into this place and I went just in my mind I didn't tell the realtor I didn't tell anybody but I was just like this feels great I like the way this place feels I didn't know anything about it I didn't really know much about it, but there was a connection. This house, too. I walked into this house and there was a connection.

Yeah. And it's just, so that's great. But as far as people being beautiful and ugly and stuff, I think it's more about their personality and sort of, I always talk about it's what's in your heart and what comes out of your mouth that make you beautiful or ugly, right? It's the words you say, it's the feeling that you have. It's sort of your thought process, all that kind of stuff.

You know, the rest of it's all bonus. but, you know, if you have a beautiful soul, it'll come out every time you talk. It just does. Yeah. And so that's how I like to judge people on what they say and how they say it. Yeah. I think that makes sense to people. When somebody says, you know, somebody looks beautiful, looks ugly or something like that,

like in a story or in a book or something, is that as like confusing a concept as something like color? Is that also like a sort of, I just have no idea what they're talking about? Or is it more like graspable by analogy? Like, do you understand what it would be like for someone to be attracted to a beautiful person or something like that? Or is that one of those things that you're like, I don't really know what that means? Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027 Volt and 2026 Equinox EVM models.

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72 hours of savings. Shop now at performance.ca. 3-day sale. Driven by Performance Auto Group. Oh, no, I get why, I get why siding people are attracted to somebody beautiful because they, you know, they're like looking at them. And they think that, you know, this person's got to be interesting to talk to because they're so beautiful. But those two don't normally run hand in hand. I don't know if they, I shouldn't say normally because I don't know that for, you know, but, you know, you can be a beautiful person and be ugly at the same time because you're just, you know, a horrible person.

Yeah. You know, you can have all the looks in the world and just be awful. And conversely, you could be hideous and be the most lovely person in the world. So, you know, that whole beauty thing is, it is in the eye of the beholder and it's also in the ear of the beholder. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, I suppose. Yeah. I was hoping I could ask you a little bit about, like, accessibility in that we've spoken a bit about, like, how you might go about using a phone and how things used to be back in the 80s.

but like are there any areas at the moment that you think are particularly lacking? In particular areas that you think could maybe be relatively easily fixed if enough people like put some attention into it. Or maybe some things that people haven't really thought about that might need fixing. One of the things that I struggle with a lot is buying an airplane ticket online. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because sometimes it might be unmarked buttons or I remember I bought, I was, trying to buy a ticket a couple of years ago now. But I had the whole thing done,

except for one little button that I forgot to click. And so I needed some help. And I, you know, asked somebody like, oh, yeah, you forgot to click this one over here. And I was like, you know, I saw that and just never touched it. You know, so that's a little bit tricky. That's one of the hardest parts for me. And sometimes people's websites aren't very accessible because, again, they have unmarked buttons and things like that. You know, some apps too. Yeah. So, you know, and I just think if people were more aware that there are people that are using

this thing, they can see, it would be more helpful. Yeah. For the most part, it really, it's working really well. But there's, you know, there are a couple of little sort of bumps in the road, if you will. Yeah. How has it changed in your lifetime? I mean, technology is one thing, right?

Like, I think it's easy enough to understand. how, you know, a phone or a computer might be better or worse, depending on whether buttons are labeled and stuff. But, like, out there in the real world, so to speak, in terms of, like, crossing the road, like the bumps on the street before we cross the road, or, like, going into a train station and there being, like, a guide for blind people on the floor,

that kind of stuff. Like, how has that changed throughout your lifetime? Yeah, well, I remember the days when there were no bumps on the platform. Right. There was no of that stuff. And, you know, I generally don't really need that, you know, because I know where the edge of the platform is. And I have a cane with me and I'm not going to work over. But, you know, I like the bumps on the street.

Those are good to get you right to the crosswalk and stuff. But it's up to me to sort of do it as straight as I can. And I always just sort of run my way across the streets as quickly as possible because I'm always nervous. but yeah but accessibility in the real you know like hotels are really good because everything's labeled in a hotel you know office buildings too there's a lot of labels on the doors and stuff so I could find my way around yeah you know so all that stuff kind of works and it's but yeah it's it's just nice to have those extras I guess is what I'm trying to say I like having the extra things like the bumps yeah you know because I know if I hit the bumps on the other side I did a pretty good crossing I made it all the way

through you know yeah Is it difficult in an open space to walk in a straight line? Yes. If you're using a cane, can you use that to help you walk in a straight line? Or is it a bit of a guessing game if the space is open and flat? It's more of a guessing game if it's open and flat. I do my best. We did a competition a few years ago with another blind person.

Really? Yeah. I lost. but it was interesting, but I don't, you know, I think I'm walking straight, but I don't know. So it's, on the street it's nice because I can hear the parallel traffic, so I know I don't want to go that way. I want to keep to the other, you know, to the side I'm trying to cross and stay away from the noise. Yeah, you know, one thing I heard you talk about at some point, which I'd never considered is as vehicles become electric, like electric car. they don't make noise, which for many people is like a really good thing because, you know, the streets are quieter and all.

But presumably for you, that's kind of dangerous. Yeah, I don't like them. It's too quiet. I was standing the next to a car one time and all of a sudden it just moved. I was a woohoo, that freaked me out. Because, you know, normally you'd hear an engine on or something, right? But there's no noise. All of a sudden, this thing just starts moving.

Yeah, so I, they make a little bit of noise on the street. but I prefer the, you know, the combustion engine. Thank you very much. I, you know, it's, it's good, noisy, and it could smell it too. Yeah. You know, and it's, and I just like the sound of a car. I like that, you know, you know, of a big V8 engine, right? For example, you know, a big rumbly V8. It sounds great. People will think that, you know, self-driving cars are becoming a thing now. And as far as, presumably, I understand at the moment that to have a self-driving car, you still have to be yourself like in the car so you can take over if need be or whatever. But I can kind of envision a day, probably not that far in the future where you could just own your own

car and it could just be feeding back to you your own music and you're sort of getting from A to be by by yourself. Are you optimistic about that happening in the future? No. No. No. No. I don't trust it. Oh, so you wouldn't even if it were possible, you wouldn't want to. No, sir. No, sir. I see, right. No. Yeah, that's fair enough. There's one of me. Yeah, I don't.

It scares me. People get in those Waymo cars in Vegas all the time and they love it. I'm like, not me, baby. I don't want any part of this. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's kind of, it's interesting because I mean, I've never been a Waymo car. I've seen them all over the place. I kind of want to because I think it would be interesting.

But it's weird. It's like, it's kind of like how people are scared of flying, even though flying is way safer than driving a car. People are far more afraid of applying. And they think it's got to do with the fact that you're not in control. It's like, even though that's the feeling that you have, like it is, it is on paper, it is safer to be driven around by, by a Waymo car, by a self-driving car than another human being. But you just feel more, more comfortable if there's another person in the car, presumably. I do. And I, you know, it's, I just do. Maybe I'm a little nuts. I, but I just want that human, you know, I get human error and all the things that could happen,

but I still feel more comfortable with a human that's able to react to things. And those Waymo cars, you'll see him driving around in circle sometimes, and they just get stuck. Yeah, I must try one out at some point. Maybe I can get him on and listen to Goodfellers on some long journey or something. See how I get on. Oh, you're fantastic. So are you. So are you. I wanted to ask about, I saw a video once of you, like going to the airport and showing people what it's like to navigate the terminal and stuff as a blind person and occasionally say, well, you know, people always like to help. Like if I'm getting off of a train or if I need directions somewhere, people are, people are always willing to give me a hand. And yet I think at the same time, people are always worried about essentially like, patronizing somebody by trying to be helpful where it's not wanted?

Like, where do you think it's the line between help and, you know, like condescension and being patronizing? And how can people in those situations where they see a blind person who might look like they kind of need help? How can they approach that without just kind of annoying somebody? Especially if, like, they get it a lot. And I can kind of annoy, I can kind of imagine somebody coming over and you being like, look, I'm fine, like, leave me alone, you know?

How can people avoid that? Well, one of the things that happens at the airport that I find patronizing is that they want to put me in a wheelchair. Really? Really? Yeah. They always want to put me in a wheelchair all the time. And I don't, I'm like, I have one disability. I don't need people to think I've got two.

You know, and I'm like, how do you think I got here? I walked all the way, you know, I've been standing the whole time and now you want to put me in a wheelchair. Really? Is that because they think it would be easier for them? because they don't really have to guide you. They're just like push you around. Yep, exactly. That's what I think.

No one's ever told me that definitively. But I think that's what it is. And I would much rather walk around side of guy and just hold on to your elbow and, you know, be like I step behind you so I could feel you turn and go up and down stairs and everything. Yeah. So that's one. But if you're just going to offer help, you know, I can either say thank you or no thank you. You know, if I'm good, I'm like, no thanks. I got this.

but I appreciate you. Thank you very much. Yeah. You know, I used to be a little short-tempered with people when I, you know, they'd offer help. And I had to watch myself because I was, I don't want to be mean to people. I don't want to be rude because if it's somebody's first time ever dealing with a blind person, I'm a jerk to them. They're never going to help another blind person as long as they live.

And I can't do that to my people. I can't. Yeah. So, you know. That's right. Yeah, so I'm always very polite and just thank you. no thank you. I appreciate to help or, oh, you know, I couldn't use a little help. Would you mind? But the cool thing about, I had to learn how to ask for help. This was tricky for me because I didn't

like to. But I realized one day that somebody asked me for directions around my neighborhood and I was able to give them. And it made me feel so good to be able to help them out. And I was like, you know, I'll bet you other people feel this good when they get to help me out. Yeah. And so that was sort of the thing that got me over the little hump, if you will, to Yeah. You know, to be able to ask for help. Yeah. And some people want to do it and others don't and that's fine.

Are there things that people like assume you can't do that you actually can do with relative ease? Let's see. That's a great question. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, there's really not much that I can't do anymore. Yeah. It's just maybe think of like when you're, when you're walking around like somebody might sort of, I don't know, like somebody might say, do you need me to show you to your room? And you can be like, no, no, it's all right. You know, there's braille on the, on the, on the hotel room doors. And they're like, oh, yeah,

of course, you know, that kind of stuff where people kind of assume you'll need help and you're able to be like, you know, thanks, but I actually don't need this at all. Absolutely. Yeah, in a hotel, that's a good one. But sometimes, you know, the hotel, you know, you know, how hotel floors are, you know, they can be huge, like in a casino, for example, a resort casino. That's a giant. So I'll take the help because I could wind up walking around for 10 minutes on the floor, feel on every side. And my room will be, it's always the last one you see. So, you know, I'll take the help. And it gives me, you know, it gives me a basic idea where my room is from the elevator. But then I come up in a different elevator and I'm going, oh, no, what happened? Yeah. So I, yeah, I do that as well.

And I can see. So I can't imagine what that must be like. Yeah. But I feel like I can do pretty much everything. I mean, I, you know, I can't drive. I can't catch a ball. You know, without you telling me to watch out, here comes a ball, get hands up, they're ready to catch. But I can do so much stuff. And with technology, I've been able to do just so many things. People, one of the things that people assume is that I want those new metaglasses. But I really don't, I don't really care for those. That's for somebody who's, I think that's for somebody who's gone blind later in life.

They would be really helpful for somebody like that. But for me, I don't, I really, it doesn't do much for me. I use my other senses to get around the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you mean like as an accessibility tool? Right, exactly right. Right, right, right. Yeah, okay, that makes sense, I think.

I don't know, I think people, you said before we started, like, about how, you felt the need to tell me that it's okay to ask about this kind of stuff. there's a kind of general hesitation and reticence around asking people about things which are, which are so personal. Do you think that people should be less like careful and nervous in that way? Or is it just like, because maybe it's just you, like you're, you've chosen to do this. You are an educator. You've decided to put yourself out there. So you don't mind that. But should people retain that kind of carefulness and nervousness do you think around, around other people.

I don't think so, no. I think that we should, I feel like we've almost been afraid, or made, I feel like we've almost been made to be afraid to use particular words, you know? Right. People don't like to call me a blind person. They just don't like it.

But it's what I've always been. You know, ever since I was a little kid, I've always been a blind person. Now, you know, the thing that was hard for me was acceptance because I hid from it forever. I did not like being a blind person. I didn't like to say the word. I couldn't stand saying it because I hated to be different.

But, you know, it's into, you know, it took years and years, but I finally accepted it. I'm finally very comfortable in my own skin. I love being a blind person. I don't want to be anything else. Yeah. And like, I just love it. I love being a blind person because that's what I am. And I love myself.

You know, I'm not embarrassed by it. I'm not anything. I used to be, I was horrified by it, but no more, no more. That's great. And I think people, when I, when I watch your content online, one of the comments, you must notice this too that comes up most frequently, it doesn't matter what the video is about, but people always comment on how happy you are and how happy you seem. And not just on the level of like, you report that you're content and you say like,

yeah, I'm happy with my life. just something about like your energy and like the way that you talk, the, the, the humor, the laughter. It just seems like you, at least in those moments of filming when you feel up for getting on camera and talking about something, you just seem sort of filled with joy. And from the sounds of it, that hasn't always been the case. But like, I think it's really nice. I think it rubs off on people. And like, do you agree with the assessment? Do you think that you are a sort of exceptionally happy person?

And if so, what's your secret, man? Well, I guess I'm an exceptionally happy person. I don't know. I like to, like, I enjoy having fun. I enjoy life. I enjoy being alive. I enjoy people. You know, a friend of mine said at one time, and this is about the best way to describe it,

choose joy. There's joy all around you, and all you have to do is choose it. because it literally is joy everywhere you turn everywhere. It's, you know, it could be just in the sunshine outside. It could be a song. It could be a photo. It could be anything that just gives you joy. And you just choose that joy and be with it.

And I don't know. That's how I like to live. Because who wants to be around somebody who's grouchy, you know, and all sort of surly. And nobody wants to be around that. Yeah. I think it's inspirational to people just because I think even just outside of the work you do, like no matter what your job was or what kind of person you were, just anybody in any line of work who is so consistently happy and uplifting and humorous as you are, I think just inspires people, like just for their own selves to remember that, yeah, like you can, you can just be happy. I mean, life is hard for a lot of people and you don't have a choice in many things. But where that choice is

is available, even just to find a bit of joy in the things that are presenting themselves to you, you know, that option's on the table, and I think it's inspirational. So I think people are very grateful for the example that you set. And also for, yeah, like being like the go-to guy online for learning about what it's like to be blind. I mean, do you often hear from blind people, presumably they don't watch your content in the sense that they don't really need to know what it's like to be blind, but they might watch out of interest in how you're explaining it to other people. And do you hear from a lot of blind people? Like, do they send you emails and thank you for your work or tell you, hey, you should, you know, you should cut that out or you should stop saying this,

or you should say this or try this, you know? Not too much of that, honestly. I, you know, I hear from some blind creators. But the thing that I hear that really that melts my heart is to hear from a mom or a dad who says, listen, we have a blind child who's two, three years old. And we have had no idea what their life was going to be like until we saw your stuff. And now we feel good. And that just, that touches me. I love that. Because, you know, when I was a kid, my mom used to listen to like Jose Feliciano.

He would be on the Tonight Show all the time at Johnny Carson. And he was a successful blind person. And that made my mother feel good. And I actually got to meet him once and told him that. I was like, you know what? I just want to let you know that my mom, you know, looked up to you. And you were an inspiration to her with her blind son and everything. and he appreciated that. But that's a thing that I just, I just love that. It's very, it's lovely. It's

sweet. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Well, look, I, I really appreciate you taking the time, Tommy. I'm going to make sure that your channel is linked down in the description. Like, as I say, it's all kinds of questions that you've answered for, like, over a decade now. All the little particularities you wouldn't even think to ask you, you take them on with grace and curiosity and humor and it's, and it's always good fun. So I'll put that in the description for people to check out. But thank you so much for your time. I thought this would be interesting and I was right. You're very kind. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here. You know, and like I said, you have all these great thinkers on your show and that me. But, well, you know, like next to Hitchens and people like that, you know.

Yeah, well, I think you're, I think you bring a perspective, man. And the, the, My favorite episodes that I do, I think, are because there are people who are smart and there are people who are well read and people who are experts in their field and stuff, and that's great. But it often doesn't do much for people unless they've got a particular angle, a particular perspective, a particular sort of way of approaching the subject matter. And when it comes to this kind of stuff, like, you've got one of the most unique perspectives in the world. And I think it's just interesting alone for that reason, even if you were a sort of grumpy, humorless, you know, guy, it would still be interesting to talk to you. So given that you're on either of those things and you're actually really fun to talk to no matter what the subject is, I think it's hopefully going to be enjoyable for people. So thank you for your time. And yeah,

I hope people enjoy this. It's something a little bit different. Well, it's lovely to be here. Thank you again so much for having me. I appreciate you.