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"Don't talk about injured limbs." Now I take that, at first sight, to mean: Stop complaining and whining about your aches and pains. When I was a child, visiting my grandparents, I was often there when they had elderly relatives over for coffee and the conversation would unfailingly turn to the latest trip to the doctor and to the various ailments they suffered from. I thought to myself: "I hope I never start talking about illnesses and pains. This is so boring." Now I've reached an age where I myself complain of various ills and pains and I catch myself and think: "You have become your grandparents."

It would seem that my first interpretation of the slogan is wrong. That it means in fact not to talk about other people's injured limbs (I want to keep that phrase for now). Why would one talk about other people's injured limbs? One reason might be to commiserate with the person in question. What happened? Does it hurt? Do you need any help? These questions seem to me quite natural. In fact it would be rude to ignore that someone suddenly wears a bandage or has a cast. However, the next step is more tricky. Say the person in question tells you that she broke her leg while skiing. At that point judgment might stick up its ugly head. "Skiing? Everyone knows that skiing is dangerous. Serves her right."

I think it is the judgmental part that is dangerous. And this is probably most evident when it comes to physical handicaps (I am sorry, I cannot bring myself to use phrases like "differently abled" because they gloss over reality). You meet someone in a wheelchair and think: "Would I want to live like that?" So there is a judgement about what sort of life is livable. I can't help it. These thoughts arise. And then you meet people. A year ago our so I was travelling home late one evening and in the train there was a woman with an electric wheelchair and we started talking. She had been at a film festival in another city and had there taken photographs and collected autographs of celebrities. That was her hobby. She travelled all over the country from one festival to the other. She showed me the autograph books and some of the photos she'd taken. Of course, travelling by wheelchair is a challenge. Not all trains are equipped to accommodate wheelchairs, one has to ask for help in advance. This woman had conquered all those difficulties. She was cheerful and full of beans. So here I was with my preconceived notions about what life in a wheelchair implies and I realised that I had a very narrow view of what is possible.

So, what does that mean in terms of this slogan? Maybe: don't fixate on the injured limb, see everything else that is still there. Don't fixate on physical perfection. Or any sort of perfection. Perfection is an illusion and doesn't make people happy.

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