Getting to Know Silence

some time ago I was thrown I'm in this parallel dimension, and I've been trying attentively and carefully to understand how it works, because only those from here are capable of understanding certain things... some even terrifying!

First of all, it's good to explain that, despite the name being "Silence," not everything here is silent: the barrier around each inhabitant may not be absolute, allowing the passage of some frequencies and varying from person to person.

Many people think it's just a matter of "not listening," but it's more complex. If you want to understand how this invisible boundary works in practice—and how it affects our relationships with neighbors and family—I've drawn a map for you:

As you saw above, this hearing barrier ends up hindering the full comprehension of the various sounds in the environment and, most complicated of all, the understanding of things that are said and are an essential part of the process that makes a human being belong to some social structure... any one: family, religious or professional.

Outsiders imagine that we, the inhabitants, are all the same, but they have no idea that there are two very different districts: Sinalecta e Technoral.

Theoretically, it should be easy to move between them — after all, we are all inhabitants of the same city — but things are not so simple, partly due to historical factors which I will, at most, briefly mention, without pretending to cover either the historical depth or the global perspective of deafness… for now.

Here is one Here's a link for anyone who wants to learn more about these topics., But I think it would be interesting to share some details I noticed in the districts of Silencidade, which is as Brazilian as it is contemporary.

Tecnoral, The District of the “Bionics”

I'll talk first about the place where I landed, since that's the one I'm most likely to know best from my own experience.
As soon as I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by the community of “Deaf People Who Hear“"where I received a lot of guidance and the donation of my first hearing aid for profound deafness.".

The fact is that my damn analytical mind has started to realize that everything here is new and, above all, electric!

In Technoral, We are deeply dependent on energy because everything has to be switched on all the time!
Not only do we use tons of batteries to break the noise barrier, but we depend on electricity for everything: dehumidifiers, smartphones, smartwatches… without these things (and without knowing lip reading or being a regular at Sinalecta), we would be restricted to paper and pen.

AudioActive

The AudioAtivo ConceptYou can call me paranoid, but currently one of my biggest fears is called... electromagnetic pulse.
Thinking carefully about all these facts and developments, I've discovered that the most accurate term to identify myself is... AudioActiveI am only capable of social interaction while electrically charged—without implants, prostheses, or the energy to power them… I am nothing more than a deaf-talking person isolated in a vacuum!

Believe it or not, silence often ends up being extremely and inconveniently noisier than the normal world, because devices amplify everything.
The ability to switch everything off ends up being a blessing.

Moreover, the inability to hear even one's own voice is the opposite of being forced to listen to everything happening in the environment, because on many occasions, despite the advanced technology available, the AASI — Individual Sound Amplification Devices — don't allow us to focus on the sound we want, but force us to listen to everything in the environment at the same time... and then we have to figure out how to filter out what's relevant!

Here too, patience is needed in any case:

• Who no money You will need patience and willingness to work hard to get any results from the Unified Health System.
• Who has a lot of money You must also have a lot of patience and meticulousness to test devices from various brands until you find the one that best suits your needs.

All of this ultimately makes Tecnoral a district that is almost—and only almost!—free from the sound barrier, and its residents capable of more dynamic interactions with listeners.

Sinalecta and the Court of "Deaf Purity"“

This district is the heart of Silence and may be as old as Brazil itself.
Everyone born in Silencidade is more likely to end up here.

Unlike the energy needs of the other district, those who live here can lead an "organic" life, depending only on their own hands and eyes to interact: even at a distance, all it takes is lighting for the signposts to be able to communicate!

Listeners immediately associate the Sign Language used in Sinalecta with all the residents of Silencidade, but it is extremely important to point out that it is neither something "organic"—requiring to be LEARNED!—nor is it universal.
Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) is used by only a portion of deaf people and exclusively in Brazil.

It is risky to speak of subjects we do not know, therefore, since I am not a resident of that district, I think it is fair to simply recount, without any softening of the masks, the experiences related to it that I have gone through.

The Gestapo of Silence

As soon as I landed in Silencidade, instead of a welcoming atmosphere, I found a court.
I didn't just feel offended; I felt persecuted: many people demanded that I instantly learn LIBRAS (Brazilian Sign Language), as if it were a "Matrix"-style download.

I started wondering if such an aberration exists in other types of disabilities: imagine someone who has recently undergone a painful amputation, still dealing with the trauma of the loss, suffering attacks from veterans who were born without legs, saying that if he doesn't know how to "wheelie the wheelchair" immediately, he is not worthy of disability rights.
Does it sound absurd? Well, that's exactly how I was treated.

I felt like I was facing a real Gestapo, an ideological patrol persecuting me for not being a "pure deaf person" (a kind of Aryan of disability).
The demand was clear and cruel: I should abandon my knowledge, my history, and lobotomize my mother tongue (standard Portuguese) to communicate in a rudimentary way, like Tarzan: "I want water," "I go to the bathroom"...

The condition for being accepted into the club and having access to the community was this: to regress intellectually.
The worst problem was that, when I started considering the learning process, I received a heartfelt message from a resident of Sinalecta (which I summarize here):
This clever hearing person wants to take a job away from a deaf person..

Don't doubt it: I swore loudly!
It was a painful offense to be treated like a fraud, as if I had deliberately turned off my hearing just to pull off some scam or gain an unfair advantage.
The reception from that radical wing of Sinalecta was so repulsive that my desire at the time was to be able to listen again immediately—not for the music or the voices of those I love, but simply to avoid being forced to coexist, even virtually, with that sectarian mentality.

But reality hits hard and painfully: the only way out of Silence is death!
My deafness is genuine, but it doesn't make me afraid of harsh words: I'm a survivor, born from highly offensive theological debates and hardened in the use of screen capture tools.
As I published updates on my progress in seeking my rights, the news outlets published "compliments" such as:

• “"Deaf Paraguayan"”
• “"Deaf 007"”
• “"Fake Deaf"”

They, filled with rage, posted videos without audio or subtitles, where all I could see were people completely distraught and full of anger, as if I were stealing something from them.
By making all those threatening gestures, they seemed eager to physically assault me!

The Free Pass and the “Wave”

The most ironic attacks occurred when I was trying to teach people how to obtain the Free Pass: I was accused of "wanting to show off" or even of faking a disability to travel for free!
They have no idea what a "high" I'll really get when I earn enough to return the pass and travel on my own!

All these episodes simply killed my initial motivation to learn sign language: why spend time and money communicating with those who discriminate against and assault me?!?

The Hypocrisy of the Listeners

If the pressure within the deaf community is already exhausting, the hypocrisy of the "hearing world" is enough to make you roll your eyes.
There is a curious and irritating phenomenon: virtue signalingThe average listener loves to be moved by videos of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS), finds it "beautiful" and "inclusive," and rushes to pay for expensive sign language courses just to post on social media that it's "accessible"... that's the stage inclusion.

But try asking that same "ally of the cause" to provide real-time transcription (closed captioning) at your events, lectures, or plays.
The magic ends instantly!
For them, the caption "taints" the visual.
For them, hiring a stenographer is an "unnecessary expense".
They prefer the theater of visual inclusion (the interpreter in the corner, often of no real use to the oral deaf person) to the practical effectiveness of the written text.

The Fear of Reading: "Sign Language for English Eyes Only," Subtitles for Nobody to Read…

This brings us to the bottom of the cultural pit: the war against subtitles in cinemas and the official excuse that "reading interferes with the visual experience".
The naked truth?
We are surrounded by functionally illiterateA huge portion of the listening population suffers from cognitive laziness, being unable to read and process a line of text at the speed of normal speech!

The result?
Movie theaters packed with dubbed screenings to cater to lazy listeners, while I, a deaf person who depends on reading to consume culture, am forced to hunt down the only subtitled screening in the city, usually at 10 pm on a Tuesday, in a shopping mall 30 km from home.

The accessibility they sell is the kind that looks good in photos.
The accessibility I need — text, captions, clarity — requires them to read… and asking these people to read, apparently, is asking too much.

Pioneers, Diplomats… And a Madman!

However, even in the face of so much disappointment, I never stopped recognizing the importance of sign language for those who chose to use it, especially for those born without another option: I could never believe that all that primal aggression could be the unanimous characteristic of the inhabitants of Sinalecta… and my waiting has yielded results!

By essentially embodying everything that most listeners know about Silence, Sinalecta ends up receiving most of the attention from the "common world," making at least the name of its language known to almost everyone and, full of pride, stating that "Libras is the second official language of Brazil.".

The fact is that in both districts there are oppressed, insecure people who have great difficulty seeking their rights and who have an even greater potential to be caught in the clutches of depression and its deadly impulses, especially because their interactional limitations constitute the only deficiency that does not show obvious signs, being practically invisible.

I end up becoming an excluded minority, even being despised and receiving disapproving looks when, in a moment of brutal honesty, I confess that sign language is of no use to me at all!

Diante de tudo isso, optei por utilizar todos os recursos disponíveis para divulgar informações e, do meu jeito (complicado para alguns, bruto para outros…), oferecer um pouco de entretenimento direcionado aos habitantes de Silencidade — seja cantando que toda surdez é diferente ou compartilhando o fluxo da bondade no cotidiano dos trens — e, ao mesmo tempo, descobri ser potencialmente útil ao criar camisas informativas que, até então, não eram coisas comuns entre os deficientes auditivos… infelizmente minhas atitudes táticas e autoconfiança acabaram surpreendendo e causando estranheza em ambos os distritos.

After providing more than enough proof that my deafness is real and spending some time publishing content, happily and finally some citizens with the ability to frequent both districts realized that I could be useful to the cause and approached me, as they noticed that I was (and continue to be) having some problems both understanding and responding to people trying to communicate with me in "written sign language".

I only truly began to have better communication with the Sinalecta population thanks to these rare enlightened souls who not only helped me understand them, but took the lead in producing even explanatory videos in sign language about who I was, the peculiarities of my deafness, and my willingness to contribute to the process of informing and including all inhabitants of Silencidade among the population that does not suffer from sound barriers.

After that, many fantastic things happened — and a good portion of them are recorded on the page. Deaf AudioAtivos Oralized, which I created on Facebook — and although it sounds a lot like fiction, it's all very real, and new challenges and adventures arise every day.

Next, I'm going to show you two moments from one of the episodes that moved me the most:

I haven't yet had time to learn sign language, and honestly? My priority today is something else entirely. My struggle is technological and intellectual.!

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