Aimee Mullins invites us to challenge our own ideas of “disabled” encouraging us to choose to understand it not as we commonly do…
She was born without shinbones -fibulae- and amputated at age one.
“I was born into a world that percieved someone like me as having nothing to live for, nothing to offer…”
“It’s not just about the words we use but about the values behind the words and how we construct those values. Our language affects our thinking and how we view the world – and how we view other people.”
She chooses not to live a life limited by what conventions and “experts” said she would only be capable of.
As the doctor who helped bring her into the world once said to her …
“I had to give your parents that you would never walk, never have the kind of mobility and independent life that other kids would have …
….and you’ve been making a liar out of me ever since”
Aimee Mullins chooses each day to use the opportunity she has been given to find out just what is possible for her- and she’s still finding that out by challenging us all to examine and change the way we think about what we might percieve as other’s limitations.
Watch for yourself at…
http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.html
more..
…on running
http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_on_running.html
…and on her twelve pairs of legs
http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html