Connect the Dots

 If you never step outside your comfort zone what you are missing will never come find you.

About four years ago, I was introduced to a language I had heard about but never fully understood how it worked.  The language is Braille and it was created to help the blind read and communicate.  It is one of the most fascinating languages I have ever experienced.  What appears to be a random sequence of bumps, that makes little sense to the untrained eye, is in actuality a six dotted domino, with each cell representing a letter.

This language was created by the remarkable Louis Braille, who to say the least had a rough life.  He was the Steve Jobs of his day, however being an innovator back in his day did not wield him any power or bring him any recognition or profit.  Rather he was disdained for his innovation and brilliant ideas.  He even died in the prime of his life.

 Louis Braille was born in 1809 in Coupvray, France, during Napoleon‘s failed attempt to conquer Europe.  The challenges began early at the age of three, when Louis suffered a devastating eye injury while playing with his father’s saddle making tools.  Subsequently, he lost his eyesight because of the infection that set in and from the primitive treatments of the practitioners of the time whose methods instead of helping did permanent harm.

Despite this setback opportunity knocked at the age of ten when Louis was selected to attend a special blind school in Paris, four hours from his home.  It was there at the age of twelve that he was introduced to night writing or artillery code, a precursor to Braille.  This was a primitive way for the blind to read using dots and dashes that were raised or embossed created by a man named Captain Barbier.  His code of dashes and dots was complicated and clumsy, seeing it used huge cells and needed more than a fingertip to read.  Louis took to this form of communication and at one time met the Captain personally to make some helpful suggestions to make it easier to use.  However, Barbier didn’t take kindly to a blind child’s suggestions and become annoyed refusing to listen to him.

Not one to sulk, at the age of fifteen Louis Braille unveiled a new alphabet in which he created 63 ways to use a six cell dot, where all the symbols fit under the fingertip. This would eventually become known as language we today call Braille.  Louis also worked hard on the Braille music code he wrote while in his twenties.   Also, in his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis which most likely came from a poor diet and unhealthy living conditions.

In his mid-thirties people began publicly to call the dot system by his name: Braille.  Sadly, before widespread distinction could reach him,  Louis Braille died at the age of 43 on January 6, 1852.  For a while, due to ignorance mixed with jealously, there were some who tried to ban the use of Braille among the blind, with a big complaint being the Braille dots do not resemble print letters.

Regardless, two years after his death in1854, France adopted Braille as its official communication system for the blind.  Eventually, Louis Braille’s system spread throughout the world and of course still bears his name today   Braille has been adapted to nearly every language on earth and remains the major medium of literacy for blind people everywhere.

So, I guess it just goes to show we must never give up when it comes to helping others to see what really matters.  Thank goodness, Louis Braille didn’t just throw his hands up in disgust and go in sit in a corner and pout. Instead, he showed the world he knew what he was doing. 

Connect the dots is a great reminder that our world only stays complicated if we allow it.

Swavel

**Footnote: I gathered information for this article from this website:  www.brailler.com/braillehx.htm