Accordingly, on October 18, 2012, Sue and I announced the establishment of the End Blindness by 2020 Prize, accompanied by a substantial award—$3 million—to be bestowed December 14, 2020, upon the person, group, or institution deemed to have made the greatest scientific and medical contribution toward advancing vision science for human patients. The award ceremony—to take place in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court, thanks to the kindness of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—will be a celebration, of course. How could it be otherwise? Darkness shall become light! The blind shall see! But we also intend to frame the moment as a judgment, the righting of an ancient wrong. And thus, to borrow from Virgil’s Aeneid, which did so much to rally my spirits and lead me to the book you are now reading: “Even this we will be pleased to remember.”
(More about the prize, the accompanying campaign, and the governing council and scientific advisory board can be found in the epilogue. I urge readers to take a look.)
I most definitely do not wish to inflate my importance in all this. I am not a player in the world of science. I am not even a coach or a team owner although I have had a financial interest in various professional teams and once owned a sports venue: the venerable Cleveland Coliseum. The players in this far more important arena are the researchers, their professional leaders—their coaches, as it were—and their colleagues around the world who produce knowledge in ancillary but possibly quite relevant areas. I am a businessman, but I do tinker with ideas, and many of them run toward technology and science. Most important, I am a dreamer who, because of my limitations, knows no horizons.
That is precisely why I dared to raise this new signpost and why I dare to look beyond blindness to where our prize and all this effort might ultimately lead.
From the intricate knowledge of every ocular-system cell might we not reasonably anticipate that important new medical diagnostics and dispositive treatments would subsequently flow? What if instead of laboriously drilling down toward the mysteries of the most basic platform of human life and struggling to connect the parts, we were able to understand and follow the processes of life from that base upward, change by physiological change, interaction by interaction? Imagine, then, the enhanced predictability of diagnoses and treatments for disease, and even prevention. And go further: imagine how this approach might spread to aid Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s victims, para- and quadriplegics, and so many more who find themselves at the mercy of failed nerve clusters.
Not reasonable? Unrealistic? Yes, and no. “Yes,” perhaps, when all the well-informed ifs, ands, and buts of today are tallied, exclusive of dreams. But saying instead “no, not unrealistic” to boundaries and limitations—that is the direction I have learned to take in my life. “No” to the idea that I should just accept being blind and learn to make screwdrivers back home in Buffalo. “No” to all the warnings that I should not return to Columbia, and in any case should not try to graduate with my class. “No” to the well-meaning admonition that I would be wise not to apply to big-time grad schools. “No” now to the injustice of blindness in the largest sense—that it needs to exist at all. Humans weren’t meant to live in darkness. We were made to see the light.
Maybe I will be proven wrong. Perhaps blindness is endemic to the human condition, a burden resistant to the wonders of science, to be randomly distributed across all of time. But given my own life experiences, given all the good fortune that has come my way, given the resources at my disposal, not to attempt to end blindness would be the biggest injustice of all. That, too, is of the essence of the tikkun olam, to pursue perfection even if it should prove unattainable. But here’s my deepest secret: I absolutely believe that blindness can be ended, that justice for those of us forced to go through life in the dark half-light of the unsighted is well within our reach. Sue’s and my End Blindness by 2020 Prize isn’t meant to conjure up a miracle cure. We’re merely hoping to nudge the clock forward to a time when all God’s children can not only feel the sun shining on their faces but also witness with their own eyes its rising and its setting.
I’ve never forgotten the wisdom of Congressman Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback: “throw deep”—a bit of advice I have often followed, both in my business life and in my quest to satisfy my promise to my ghostly monitor to help make blindness a thing of the past. More wisdom underlies “throw deep” than may at first be apparent. Why? Because it is a default bit of human nature to give careful consideration to negative aspects of a contemplated action—essentially, negotiating with oneself. Too often, that ends with the action compromised or even avoided.
But throwing deep is not the same as acting rashly or, in the case of a Hail Mary pass, from desperation. Throwing deep is acting toward that which one truly desires, after having considered—and rejected or countered—the limitations. (In the case of Jack Kemp and other NFL quarterbacks, these considerations must be run through in scant seconds, with Everest-sized linemen bearing down on them!) All this differs greatly from the sorts of internal compromises and toxic regrets that negotiating with oneself tends to produce. But to me, the choice between the two has long been clear.
To throw deep is to honor one’s highest beliefs and aspirations. It is to answer the Call, to fulfill our tikkun olam, whatever that solemn vow might be. For an adventure such as pushing toward an end to blindness, throwing deep is hardly hyperbole and not necessarily the end of the story, either. It
