“Empathy Will Save the World”

– I have to admit that there aren’t many people with disabilities around me, and when I do interact with someone, I really want to avoid hurting them in any way. But it’s hard to find the balance.

– It all comes down to the fact that people have built an image of those with disabilities as very vulnerable, fragile beings. In my view that is a myth, fed by the “victims” among people with disabilities. The normal approach is to ask early on in the conversation whether the person in front of you has any uncomfortable topics they don’t want to talk about. If they say no, there should be nothing to worry about.

Lately, to overcome hate speech, political correctness has been introduced, with its whole cushioning apparatus of expressions. But everyone knows that

the strictest guardians of this style are hypocrites who deliberately twist their thoughts so that they sound acceptable.

In that sense, it is far better to be frank and call things what they are. Even if at first a person with a disability asks the other person to spare them, later on the hypocrisy will weigh on them and make them suffer. If someone doesn’t want to talk about a particular problem of theirs, it means they haven’t outgrown it, haven’t fully understood it, are ashamed of it. These are exactly the people who need to be told frankly that the fault is not in them, that they are not to blame for their situation. That there is a place on Earth for them, too. That their illness or disability is a part of them they shouldn’t deny, because that would only be punishing themselves.

– Many families still decide they can’t care for children with disabilities and hand them over to specialized institutions. Can that ever be the better option?

– My parents were offered that too, but they refused. I’m grateful to them for it. Nothing can replace a family environment. I love my mother, my father and my older sister beyond measure; they will always be people I can count on and who can count on me. I say this knowing how painful it may sound to children without parents. The hardest thing for them is that they haven’t received as much love as it takes to be able to give of themselves later on.

By abandoning a child, a parent brands it as unwanted for life. It’s important that all of us as a society create a friendly environment for these children, that we don’t treat them as “the poor things” we toss a few leva, Bulgaria’s currency, to on holidays and at charity concerts. Empathy will save the world.

As for the question itself, however paradoxical it sounds, sometimes the institution can be the more acceptable option. I know people with disabilities who were abused and mistreated by their parents as children, and others who were completely ignored at home and left to grow up on their own. I had classmates like that, too, and when I heard their stories, I could appreciate what a happy child I was. But there is no clear-cut answer. It all depends on the people who raise you. With one difference: if they are your parents and they treat you badly, it hurts much more.

– If you have a child one day, what is the most important thing you’ll want to teach it?

– To see. To be able, with its eyes closed, to understand what the person in front of it is like, what they think, what mood they’re in.

But never to close its eyes to the important things that can be seen even without sight.

To value beauty in people and to strive for it itself. Not outer beauty, which is so fleeting and fragile, but the kind that springs from within and ennobles a person.

– Has technology made the world more accessible for people with disabilities?

– Of course. And it keeps getting more accessible. As the possibilities grow, so do users’ demands. Work on accessible technology began a long time ago, back when the first audio recordings of books were released in the United States. Few people know that we have audiobooks and e-books thanks to visually impaired people, whose organizations were looking for ways to make more literature accessible to them. Braille is too expensive to produce and harder to reproduce. After books came speech synthesizers and screen readers.

Blind people are probably the group of people with disabilities for whom the most has been done in technology.

Thanks to them, today we have not only programs that read aloud what a person types or what the cursor passes over, but also apps through which you can give voice commands for all sorts of functions, including translation into a foreign language.

Artificial intelligence has yet to expand the possibilities. Today we have systems activated by eye gaze that serve people with speech and motor impairments, and quite recently a brain was successfully connected to a computer. So even

people with the most severe disabilities, if they can form a clear thought, will have a way to tell it to the world.

And also to take in from it things that were previously beyond the reach of their minds and senses.

– Are there any downsides that come with them?

– The dangers in this area for people with disabilities are the same as for everyone. Less movement and exercise, a declining ability to concentrate on anything at all, a sense of boredom and depression caused by the endless array of goods, services and lifestyles paraded on social media that we can’t afford… I can speak mostly about blind people. In Bulgaria, as in many other countries, there is a retreat from braille. It has been proven that when a person takes in braille by touch, they remember far more than by ear.

Today almost everything on the internet is accessible through talking programs, and most blind people use them at a high reading speed. What’s more, the programs are designed to produce speech as close to the real thing as possible. Reading from the earliest age only through a computer or phone significantly reduces language literacy. The program sometimes hints at spelling mistakes by reading words with a pointedly wrong pronunciation. Although that’s useful when composing texts on a computer, it doesn’t help students build good habits.

This is a general trend with writing through technology, which I can confirm from my position as a teacher of Bulgarian language and literature. And here it is among blind people, too. Other dangers technology holds for people with disabilities include addiction to the internet and social media, and the lack of live communication, which leads to mistrust.

– What are the most common online mistakes that make access difficult for blind people?

– In recent years the European Union and other international institutions have been working hard to introduce uniform accessibility rules for the entire online environment, based on established standards such as HTML for web pages.

The greatest responsibility lies with public websites—those of state institutions, major media, banks and agencies, retailers. In Bulgaria there are positive examples of corporate responsibility, but we are still lagging behind. This is especially true of state institutions, whose technological apparatus is still very far from the latest trends. The main problems blind people run into are codes embedded in images, information presented as graphs and charts, pages that constantly refresh and shift around, pop-up windows, inaccessible forms, the lack of shortcut buttons and heading links…

And since we were talking about reading, digital libraries are also problematic, because adapting a book for barrier-free reading demands a great deal of responsibility toward the content. That means correct formatting, clearing out visual objects, fixing scanning errors, clear pagination, simplifying tables and diagrams, creating alternative text formats.

– What do people with disabilities in Bulgaria need most today?

– Oh, I can’t generalize like that. They need what all people need—better education, better healthcare, a better-organized social system.

– As a nation, we seem to love complaining, and about trifles at that. Do you think so too?

– It’s a pan-Balkan syndrome. In my view it’s a consequence of the slave mentality left over from five centuries of Ottoman rule, in which we hand our responsibilities to others. And then we demand unlimited rights and privileges from them. We want someone to take care of us, feed us, watch over us, teach our children, pay us big salaries, give us an extension on every commitment and a treat for every good deed. And, if possible, without us doing anything to earn them.

This is the psychology of the victim who doesn’t want to take matters into their own hands. For the victim, being dissatisfied is normal; it feeds on that, it gives meaning to its existence and defines itself through it; it has inherited this way of seeing the world from its parents, from its surroundings. Combine that with the growing detachment and inhumanity of the urban environment, where everyone is shut in their shell and lives without a thought for others, and you get a rather unpleasant mix. In rural areas you can still sense, here and there, a feeling of community and people’s ability to work well together for shared causes.

Our inability to think and work together shows at every level, reaching all the way to the highest one, political representation.

– As someone with considerable experience in the media by now, do you think they have a future in their current form?

– Today there are all kinds of media, and each has its audience. A small readership shouldn’t render a media outlet’s existence pointless. But there is something that deeply corrupts the whole environment. It feeds on advertising, which in turn chases audiences. If more media had stable funding regardless of traffic, that would open the way for a lot of information that currently doesn’t reach people.

The political and economic ties of many media outlets in our country complicate things further.

But what you read and listen to, and what you believe, is your personal choice and responsibility.

People are free to form their opinion of any public process based on media content. But they are also free to decide which content aims to manipulate them and pull them away from the facts, and which aims to bring them closer. So the media have a future, but whether objective journalism will keep holding its ground in this polluted information environment, I can’t say.

– You put a lot of effort into your blog, and you have many interesting pieces there. What motivates you to do it? And are blogs actually media?

– In this space of social networks, every person is already a medium. When writing a blog, one of the author’s goals is to inform through it. Even I, when I create content, research and cross-check many sources so that it’s reliable. And when I say that, I don’t mean opening “Wikipedia” and reading two results Google turned up. On the contrary, I’m talking about very extensive searches, reading dozens of sources, asking people, checking every date and every fact. If something turns out not to match, I correct it. That’s responsibility toward the audience. I wouldn’t like it to consider me a liar and someone who bends the facts to suit himself.

The effort I put in doesn’t weigh on me. It enriches me and opens new horizons. If I didn’t find it interesting and enjoyable, I wouldn’t do it. My blog is the result of something that built up over time; it’s not a passing whim destined for a short life. My ambition is to complete a ten-year program I’ve set myself. Since I consider music one of my greatest strengths, I think I owe more information to everyone in that world whom I respect, and to the audience as well.

– Are there things you dream will become possible thanks to technology?

– There’s nothing left that technology does beyond my dreams anymore. I recently took part in an international project aimed at finding a technological solution for more accessible transport in Sofia. The idea we unanimously agreed to develop was a mobile app. It will be accessible to people with various disabilities, will inform them about the accessibility of every route in the capital and will show how to get quickly from one point to another. And this can absolutely happen in Bulgaria; it’s a matter of organization, technical expertise and a clear brief that involves the people who would use it.

– Which technologies are you most eager to see change our future?

– Elon Musk has lately been doing research in which the brain sends signals directly to a computer. Right now we joke a little about chips and about conspiracy theories claiming that everyone will be controllable through tiny devices implanted in their heads.

I don’t know what awaits us. But even if it’s the worst-case scenario, I believe that humans, as the final stage in the evolution of living species, are called upon to bring this natural cycle to some kind of end, after which something entirely new will follow. What that will be, we can only guess.

– Are you thinking of returning to singing? Of continuing your education in that direction too?

– I’ve never stopped singing. I’ve had dozens of performances recently, despite the pandemic. I’ve started a new project to set up a recording studio where I can fully develop my creative ideas. Music is my greatest love. When I have the chance to pass it on to people in the way that is most expressive for me, I will, even if it isn’t soon.

– And what do you want to write from now on?

– Writing is not an end in itself, and it brings no satisfaction without some higher motive. I find it hard to publish fiction, because the responsibility in writing it is enormous, and I also want my fiction to be realistic, closer to reality. Yes, Umberto Eco says books aren’t written to be believed but to make people think.

I don’t know if I’ve matured enough to write in a way that pushes people to develop their capacity for thought. So for now I’ve turned my attention to music journalism mixed with a personal element. That is also the basis of my blog, which I launched at the beginning of 2021. I’ll gather the best articles from it in a book whose aim will be to present the examples of this art that inspire me most.

– Which writers inspire you?

– It’s hard to give a short answer. It would be the same if you asked me who my favorite musicians are. One may play well, another may sing incredibly, a third may write amazing arrangements. Likewise, in writing there are masters of dialogue, of philosophy, of the crime novel.

If I named names, it would mean recommending them, and I’m all for free reading.

The more a person reads, the better they shape their taste and their ability to choose. So not a single minute spent reading is wasted. Still, I would mention one author I recently revisited with pleasure: Irwin Shaw and his classic Bread Upon the Waters. When I say master of dialogue, he’s the one I mean.

– What is the best thing about the Bulgarian language?

– I’ve thought about this question a lot. The best thing about it is that it carries an entire national culture. That culture may change over time, but at its core it is a legacy of more than a thousand years. Language is what binds us to our roots most decisively. Neither beliefs and customs nor everyday life and crafts—nothing has managed to endure through time the way language has. Because

language is not something static; it changes, adapts things to itself, or adapts itself to the world.

It reveals how far a national culture manages to integrate what is universal and supranational, and at the same time what it manages to preserve in this constant process of exchanging information.