From a Confined Space Into the Open
I ended the previous article last Friday with these words: “Even in the hospital, nurses sometimes tried to help me stand without checking at all whether my feet were firmly on the ground, ready to take my weight.”
I had a vague feeling that I wanted to look at this common‑sense perspective from the angle of physiology. I have written about this before, especially from the viewpoint of how important it is that assistants can picture things from my perspective in order to support me in the best possible way.
During this week the theme has branched out in my mind and formed an independent article. I feel that I cannot treat this as a side note; I need to tell my experience as a wheelchair user from the beginning. As before, this article assembled itself. It is in itself a demonstration of how the intuitive intellectual energy field works.
Especially during the past year, I have noticed that my environment mirrors my internal energies. I have left‑side paralysis, and my standing power wheelchair developed a steering malfunction earlier this year, apparently due to the right side “freezing up.” The maintenance service could not fix the problem, and for months now I have been learning new tricks to move the chair.
A New Rising Energy
On Monday I visited the assistive device center to discuss getting a new chair. They did not have a standing wheelchair on display — only a chair with a rising seat and many other features that allow the sitting position (the body’s center of gravity) to be adjusted.
The representative asked me how important the standing function is for me.
From my perspective the question felt almost absurd. Standing is not a feature. It is the basic posture of the human body.
I cannot sit for long periods in an ordinary chair where I collapse into myself. Even a semi‑standing, half‑upright position changes everything:
- it allows free fluid circulation in the body
- it strengthens breathing
- it increases the leverage of the arms and other muscles
- it increases my independence
- it prevents bone loss when weight is placed on the legs
I wondered aloud why power‑wheelchair manufacturers even continue to develop chairs that lack the most essential function from the user’s point of view. There are countless studies on how harmful prolonged sitting is. Even people with spinal cord injuries, who in the worst case have no sensation in their lower limbs, stand regularly with support to slow down bone loss.
The “Smartphone Era” of Wheelchairs
When I think about it more deeply, the idea of how many people would benefit from the intelligence of a standing (power) wheelchair feels astonishing. The beneficiaries would not only be people with clear mobility impairments, but also:
- elderly people whose living space shrinks
- people whose muscle groups no longer activate in daily life
- people whose bodies quietly decline
I use the smartphone analogy here: everyone can imagine how many devices the smartphone made unnecessary when everything began to function in one device.
If standing became a smooth part of the daily rhythm of people with mobility limitations, wellbeing would increase significantly. It would not require special arrangements, therapists’ support, or major financial resources — it would be a form of functional everyday movement.
But hey: elderly people who can still walk are definitely not considered the target group for power wheelchairs. This is a common attitude, and I am not here to argue about it. I simply state that everyone makes their own choices. I can only share my own experience as a wheelchair user.
My First Power Wheelchair and the Beginning of Freedom
When I talked about getting a power wheelchair after entering university in 1987, my physiotherapist at the time opposed the idea on principle: I could walk with a crutch, and that alone gave me certain freedoms.
But once my studies began, I encountered a different reality. I understood that walking is not a value in itself that I must cling to at the expense of everything else.
I had to explain in detail to the bureaucrats how a power wheelchair improved my prospects and allowed me to manage the challenges my studies placed before me. It was primarily about mobility, but also about freedom and independence.
I had walked with a crutch for seven years, but my walking had not improved. My mobility impairment limited my living area to roughly a 10‑kilometer radius. For distances over a kilometer I usually had to order a taxi unless public transport was available. The university reading rooms and libraries were scattered across the city.
With a power wheelchair I could move smoothly from place to place without unnecessary hassle. I could even travel from home to the university with it.
The Physiology of the Body and the Realities of Daily Life
It was likely that my mobility would not improve through walking. During exercise training I could raise my pulse to 80 beats per minute on an exercise bike. When walking, my pulse was 140 — a runner’s pulse, even though I was moving at the speed of one kilometer per hour. The strain on my body was enormous.
I began my Germanic philology studies before the internet era, when dictionaries were the size of bricks. With my paralyzed side I could not lift them from the shelf to the desk. The power wheelchair changed this too: I could gather the books into my lap, make copies, spread them out, and work like any other researcher.
The Expansion of Freedom
Eventually we found a narrow, aluminum‑framed power wheelchair with gel batteries. I could not have imagined how the chair would change my life.
I was freed from my small circles overnight. I drove to the market square, department stores, took the metro across the city. In the mornings I rode to the university around breakfast time, breathed deeply in the café line without muscle tension, moved from lecture to lecture, and spent hours in the library.
My university studies began on an uplifting note. I had a stable basic income, and the wheelchair opened my horizons so that only my imagination was the limit.
The thought that I could study in Germany or even go to China filled me with inner waves of ecstasy — my intellectual cells felt like they were rejoicing.
The Limits of Possibility Are in Our Own Hands
Yesterday I heard someone repeat a phrase we often hear: “you can’t have everything.”
This sentence contains a quiet invitation to submit, to shrink oneself, and to stay “within the limits of possibility.”
But each of us has the freedom to define those limits ourselves. We always have access to internal resources that shape who we become. That is the only “everything” that truly matters.
Even within limitations, challenges, and uncertainty, the inner field is intact, coherent, and unified. When we focus on that, the external world organizes itself around it.
At every moment we have everything we need to become the best versions of ourselves. When that is our anchor point, the whole idea that we “cannot have everything” loses its meaning.
Because our purpose is not to “have everything”. Our purpose is to express our truest self — to become everything we already are.
Authentic self‑expression is not a special need.
(Accessibility is not a special need.)