Two points, neither of which is a disagreement to the OP's comments:
1. Listening to speech at 450 WPM is a totally attainable skill for the sighted. It is not some kind of magical superpower that only the blind are blessed with. It's learnt by gradually increasing the speech rate and stopping just before the speech gets incomprehensible. For the record, I can't listen to text at 450 WPM and fully concentrate for long periods of time. Novels and other long pieces of writing I read at a much slower rate.
2. Processing visual information does take processing power. However, so does inventing and using coping mechanisms in a world that has been mostly made by and for the sighted. In most cases I rarely get any advantage of being blind. I just think of new approaches of performing as equally to the others as I possibly can.
1. Listening to speech at 450 WPM is a totally attainable skill for the sighted. It is not some kind of magical superpower that only the blind are blessed with. It's learnt by gradually increasing the speech rate and stopping just before the speech gets incomprehensible. For the record, I can't listen to text at 450 WPM and fully concentrate for long periods of time. Novels and other long pieces of writing I read at a much slower rate.
2. Processing visual information does take processing power. However, so does inventing and using coping mechanisms in a world that has been mostly made by and for the sighted. In most cases I rarely get any advantage of being blind. I just think of new approaches of performing as equally to the others as I possibly can.