I think (at least hope) I will get writing soon. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking. I am continuously revolving thoughts and images in my mind. When I finally put pen to paper, the result may startle some of my colleagues, because I shall do a good deal of the writing in the form of short paragraphs full of images and metaphors. It will look more like poetry than physiology. But I am persuaded that that is the only way I can begin to express my thoughts without doing violence to them (or to the subject)
– Oliver Sacks
Sometimes you capture a passage, only because you like it. Letters is a delight. The genre of letter writing books is underrated, and with AI (sometimes I hate writing that) might be even more valuable.
Sacks, Oliver. Letters. Edited by Kate Edgar. New York: Knopf, 2024. pg205
But I would say this, having lived through pandemic and lock-down, If you keep your wits about you, I mean my productivity went up a great deal, partly it’s what led to this book, so maybe that’s related. There’s less to do.
Tyler Cowen
From Russ Roberts latest conversation with Tyler Cowen:
This quote reminds me of’ “No” sign that hung above Oliver Sacks’ desk.
How can we shape our days to have less to do, to get more done?
How a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary lit the path…
The first time I visited Oliver Sacks on Wards Island northeast of Manhattan, I had mislaid the house number but knew the name of the street. It was evening, wintertime; the slightly sloping street was icy. I parked and tiptoed along the icy pavement looking into every lit-up home. None of the windows had curtains. Through one window I saw a man sprawled on a sofa with one of the hefty volumes of the OED propped on his chest. I knew that had to be him, and so it was. Our first subject was the dictionary; for him as well, it was the books of books.
Once inside, Oliver’s disposition brightens considerably. We head over—of course—to the hall of mollusks and stop before a case of squid, nautiluses, and octopuses. Oliver is by now positively chipper.
I ask him what he’d always so liked about them. For a moment, he stares at the case thoughtfully—the polymorphous, slightly goofy octopus, the sleek propulsive squid. “I mean,” he finally erupts, jocularly, “you can see what I liked about them.
“With octopuses,” he continues, “I suppose it was partly the face—that here, for the first time in evolution, appears a face, a distinct physiognomy, indeed a personality: It’s true that when you spend time with them, you begin to differentiate between them, and they seem to differentiate between you and other visitors.
“So there was that, this mutual sense of affection for the alien.
“And then there was their way of moving, which is jet propulsion.
“And their eyes, which are huge.
“Their birdlike beaks, which can give you a nasty nip.
“And their sexual habits—the male, you see, donates an entire sperm-filled leg to the female . . .
“That, and their ancientness . . . and their simultaneous adventurousness, how they threw off the repressive shell and moved out, to float free.
The chapter title A Visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Lunch at a Japanese Restaurant would lure in any curious skim reader. The American Museum of Natural History is known world wide for their dinosaur collection. But the museum is far more than dinosaurs. It’s mollusks, squids, nautiluses, and octopuses too.
Author and biographer (and commonplace book keeper) Lawrence Weshchler describes Oliver Sacks turning “chipper” upon approaching the hall of mollusks, much in the same way a five year old would be approaching the hall of dinosaurs.
A few Oliver Sacks inspired octopus ideas:
Facial recognition:
Sacks claims that after time, you can differentiate between octopuses, and they can differentiate you from other visitors. Theirfaces and personalities intertwine. A “friendly” or “mango” face isn’t limited to human beings.
The evolutionary journey of the octopus face:
Is this true? A face would include a forehead and a chin. The common octopus as we know it today looks to have appeared during the Middle Jurassic. By the Middle Jurassic plenty of creatures would possess faces, namely the dinosaurs. Is Sack’s referring to cephalopods as a whole here? Who appeared during the Cambrian era 500 million years ago?
Octopuses’ alien qualities:
The birdlike beaks. The large eyes. The shells they left behind. The movement by jet propulsion. All traits of a creature from a sci-fi tale, no?
“By the 1950s I had found I was frightened when giving public talks to large audiences, this in spite of having taught classes in college for many years. On thinking this over very seriously, I came to the conclusion I could not afford to be crippled that way and still become a great scientist; the duty of a scientist is not only to find new things, but to communicate them successfully in at least three forms:
Writing papers and books
Prepared public talks
Impromptu talks
Lacking any one of these would be a serious drag on my career. How to learn to give public talks without being so afraid was my problem. The answer was obviously by practice, and while other things might help, practice was a necessary thing to do.” – Richard W. Hammingfrom the The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
The duty of a scientist is not only to research, but to communicate.
What’s our typical image of a scientist? Someone dressed in a white lab coat, hovering over a microscope. A lab assistant near, clipboard in hand (even in 2022). Hidden in the basement of some concrete government cube.
But think of the inspiring scientists of our time: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bob Bakker, Oliver Sacks, the shark lady Eugenie Clark. They were and are scientists of the public. They shared their ideas on TV, in documentaries, podcasts, and lectures. These scientists were and are able to communicate successfully in at least the first two forms mentioned by Richard W. Hamming. Judging by interviews and their public personas I’m sure they were all capable of form #3 as well.
Mr. Richard W. Hamming’s mindset towards his fear is also worth noting. He could’ve dismissed his trepidation of speaking to large crowds as “something I’m just not wired for”. But he didn’t bury his head in the gravel. He decided practice was the necessary thing to do. Hamming would go on to give one of the preeminent talks on cultivating a scientific career titled – You and Your Research.
In the final pages, of the final chapter of On the Move, Sacks returns to one of his favorite topics – writing.
Journaling was essential for Sacks. He always kept a notebook close:
I started keeping journals when I was fourteen and at last count had nearly a thousand. They come in all shapes and sizes, from little pocket ones which I carry around with me to enormous tomes. I always keep a notebook by my bedside, for dreams as well as nighttime thoughts, and I try to have one by the swimming pool or the lakeside or the seashore; swimming too is very productive of thoughts which I must write, especially if they present themselves, as they sometimes do, in the form of whole sentences or paragraphs.
On using journals as method for talking to one’s self:
My journals are not written for others, nor do I usually look at them myself, but they are a special, indispensable form of talking to myself.
Sacks strays away from the tortured writer narrative. His attitude towards writing is similar to Ray Bradbury.
It’s a pleasure. It’s a joy. It’s an elixir to the chaos of life.
The act of writing, when it goes well, gives me a pleasure, a joy, unlike any other. It takes me to another place – irrespective of my subject-where I am totally absorbed and oblivious to distracting thoughts, worries, preoccupations, or indeed the passage of time. In those rare, heavenly states of mind, I may write nonstop until I can no longer see the paper. Only then do I realize that evening has come and that I have been writing all day.
And after seventy years writing is still fun!
Over a lifetime, I have written millions of words, but the act of writing seems as fresh, and as much fun, as when I started it nearly seventy years ago.
Here Professor Jacobs presents reading on a Whim. The idea that one should read what interests them, rather than what “you’re supposed to”.
Professor Jacobs argues reading shouldn’t be a chore, but rather a pleasurable experience.
You don’t have to read according to an assignment or according to a list of approved texts. Enjoy your freedom. Go out there and follow your whim. And by that, I mean follow that which really draws your spirit and your soul and see where that takes you. If it turns out that you spend a year reading Stephen King novels or something like that, that’s totally fine. That’s not a problem. Read your Stephen King novels, but there are also really good novels.
But whatever it happens to be, if you’re reading young adult fiction for a year, read young adult fiction for a year. After a while, you probably got to have enough of that. But don’t go around making your reading life a kind of means of authenticating yourself as a serious person. It’s just no way to live. So, I would always tell them, “Give yourself a break. Don’t make a list. See where Whim takes you.”
This book took 5 years to finish, not because Sacks’ memoir isn’t compulsively readable, but because there were other books I thought I should read instead.
Sack’s life is one to emulate. Not by becoming a neurologist and cultivating a British Accent. But rather by seeing life, all of life – love, career, hobbies travel, failure, success, as an adventure to pursue.
At one time, my father had thought of a career in neurology but then decided that general practice would be “more real,” “more fun,” because it would bring him into deeper contact with people and their lives.
This intense human interest he preserved to the last: when he reached the age of ninety, David and I entreated him to retire-or at least, to stop his house calls. He replied that home visits were “the heart” of medical practice and that he would sooner stop anything else. From the age of ninety to almost ninety-four, he would charter a mini-cap for the day to continue house calls.
Dan Wang’s article on Philip Glass’ memoir –Words Without Music was inspiring.
Learning that Glass drove taxis, and was a self-taught plumber proves there’s no shame in taking day jobs to support one’s calling.
Learning that Glass didn’t succeed as a full time composer until his forties served as a reminder.
Stamina can take one to the impossible.
Glass didn’t work just as a taxi driver and as a (self-taught) plumber. He also worked in a steel factory, as a gallery assistant, and as a furniture mover. He continued doing these jobs until the age of 41, when a commission from the Netherlands Opera decisively freed him from having to drive taxis. Just in time, too, as he describes an instance when he came worryingly close to being murdered in his own cab.
I thank the musicians who brought us so much joy in difficult times—often with few immediate rewards beyond those music itself brings. It made a difference.
Dr. Sacks describing his meeting with the Noble Prize winning physical chemist Gerald M. Edelman:
He then abruptly took his leave, and looking out the window, I could see him walking rapidly down York Avenue, looking to neither side. “That is the walk of a genius, a monomaniac,” I thought to myself. “He is like a man possessed.” I had a sense of awe and envy-how I should like such a ferocious power of concentration! But then I thought that life might not be entirely easy with such a brain, indeed, Edelman, I was to find, took no holidays, slept little, and was driven, almost bullied, by nonstop thinking; he would often phone Rosenfield in the middle of the night. Perhaps I was better off with my own, more modest endowment.
Dr. Oliver Sacks
While Edelman’s drive and single focus is admirable. Sacks goes further, admitting his envy for Edelman. Sacks recognized that while Edelman’s abilities were desirable, there was a freedom in his less “focused” life.
Sack’s intellectual work, a combination of working with patients, writing books, traveling, love for cephalopods, taking piano lessons in his seventies wasn’t “focused”. But it was rich.
Dr. Sacks opens the chapter – Voyages with a reflection on his father’s work ethic and subtle career advice.
At one time, my father had thought of a career in neurology but then decided that general practice would be “more real,” “more fun,” because it would bring him into deeper contact with people and their lives.
This intense human interest he preserved to the last: when he reached the age of ninety, David and I entreated him to retire-or at least, to stop his house calls. He replied that home visits were “the heart” of medical practice and that he would sooner stop anything else. From the age of ninety to almost ninety-four, he would charter a mini-cap for the day to continue house calls.
Dr. Oliver Sacks
After reading this passage Paul Graham’s essay How to Do What You Love came to mind. In that essay, Graham argues one should build a career (I’d argue a life) based on genuine interests, rather than prestige.
Sack’s father intuitively understood this. A neurologist does hold a higher status in society than a general practice doctor. And certainly more than a general practice doctor making house calls. But it was in that general practice, meeting the needs of his fellow man, that Sack’s father built a meaningful life.
I wonder if Dr. Sacks (sr.) had chosen Neurology, would he have had the same enthusiasm and stamina to continue working into his ninety’s?
After 3 months, I’ve returned to Dr. Oliver Sacks’ memoir – On the Move: A Life.
Reading each page is skiing downhill. A smooth, lightning shot of a journey that slaloms through Dr. Sacks’ curious life.
It’s been a joy.
From the chapter, City Island:
Especially in our early days, I sometimes felt terrified of his directness – terrified in particular, that he would find my writings, such as they were, muzzy, dishonest, talentless, or worse. I had feared his criticisms at the beginning, but from 1971 on, when I sent him Migraine, I was eager for his reactions, depended on them, and gave more weight than those of anyone else.
Dr. Oliver Sacks
Even Dr. Sacks feared critique of his writing. Especially from his friend and correspondent the poet Thom Gunn.
But as much as Gunn’s directness terrified Dr. Sacks, he valued Gunn’s feedback of his writing more than anyone else’s.
Sacks understood Gunn’s feedback would improve his writing.
Sacks also describes Gunn in the opening of the City Island chapter as a tremendous walker:
Thom was always a tremendous walker, striding up and down the hills of San Francisco. I never saw him with a car or a bicycle; he was quintessentially a walker, a walker like Dickens, who observed everything, took it in, and used it sooner or later in what he wrote.
Throughout On The Move, Sacks introduces us to new characters as if you’d be joining them for a Friday dinner party.
Sacks’ detailed descriptions of their character quirks reveal their humanity.
Floodlights and Goalposts 