Dear Lawrence-I-mean-musick,

Man, you ask a tough question! I think, by a near-tie between losing hearing and speech (I can think of only two fates worse than being blinded: being paralyzed, and death by drowning), I think I have to come down on the side of preferring to keep my speech. I could read lips to get what people were saying. My thoughts run so fast that often even my speech can't keep up with them, and I fear that trying to get them across by any other means would make me frenzied with frustration.