On the Move - Oliver Sacks

Finished reading “On The Move” - autobiography by Oliver Sacks. Two hours of it in the morning today, a bright day, with no distractions and reading through the best parts of the book, was bliss. I got to know about him first through radiolab podcasts. Watched the movie “Awakenings” based on his book by the same name (his character played by Robin Williams in the movie – exceptional talent) and had read some of his essays and TED talk. An amazing human being – I wonder how people can be so passionate, dedicated, curious, childlike, meticulous, full of energy and genuine. While the autobiography could be dragging in parts for those with not so much interest in science and medical writing, knowing his story and the context, it was interesting to me.

Few good quotes from the book.

It was sort of continuation of my thought from yesterday about why people write and the process through which writers go through. Highlighter also reminded about Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk – the story about a poet running from the farm to her home to catch the poem that is coming to her and once it passes through her like a train, catches it by the tail and the poem coming last line first as she drags it back (while it may not be literally through, it is a great way to think).

Now I was free to write, but I also had an intense, literal, almost crazy feeling of an impending deadline. I was dissatisfied with my 1967 manuscript and decided to rewrite the book. It was the first of September, and I said to myself, ”If I do not have the finished manuscript in Faber’s hands by September IO, I shall have to kill myself.” And under this threat, I started writing Within a day or so, the feeling of threat had disappeared, and the joy of writing took over. I was no longer using drugs, but it was a time of extraordinary elation and energy. It seemed to me almost as though the book were being dictated, everything organizing itself swiftly and automatically. I would sleep for just a couple of hours a night. “

The part where he writes about his relationship with his aunt Lennie was most touching for me. Having someone like this in the life, who can be the anchor for your life who will never let go, could be so lucky – life would not drift aimlessly with someone like this believing in you completely, listening, encouraging and being always there. He was so blessed.

This letter, like all her letters, opened with ”Darling Bol" (occasionally ”Boliver”), whereas my parents, more soberly, would write ”Dear Oliver.” I did not feel she used the word ”Darling” lightly; I felt very loved by her, and I loved her intensely too, and this was a love without ambivalence, without conditionality. Nothing I could say could repel or shock her; there seemed no limit to her powers of sympathy and understanding, the generosity and spaciousness of her heart.

About proof reading the drafts of his second book “Awakenings” to his mother. I think “ringing true” is a great way to evaluate anything – last week we were doing interviews for a position and after 3-4 interviews, when one of them clicked, I was thinking that it is because the candidate was not making up, it probably was “ringing true” and we decided to select.  

She would listen intently, always with emotion, but equally with a sharp critical judgment, one honed by her own sense of what was clinically real. She tolerated, with mixed feelings, my meanderings and ponderings, but ”ringing true” was her ultimate value. ”That doesn’t ring true!” she would sometimes say, but then, more and more, ”Now you have it. Now it rings true.”

In a sort of way, then, we wrote the case histories of Awakenings together that summer, and there was a sense of time arrested, of enchantment, a privileged time-out from the rush of daily life, a special time consecrated to creation.

More on writing process. I think it could be one more reason to write – to discover one’s own thoughts through the act of writing.

it seems to me that I discover my thoughts through the act of writing, in the act of writing. Occasionally, a piece comes out perfectly, but more often my writings need extensive pruning and editing, because I may express the same thought in many different ways. I can get waylaid by tangential thoughts and associations in mid-sentence, and this leads to parentheses, subordinate clauses, sentences of paragraphic length. I never use one adjective if six seem to me better and, in their cumulative effect, more incisive. I am haunted by the density of reality and try to capture this with (in Clifford Geertz’s phrase) ”thick description.” All this creates problems of organization. I get intoxicated, sometimes, by the rush of thoughts and am too impatient to put them in the right order. But one needs a cool head, intervals of sobriety, as much as one needs that creative exuberance.

The act of writing is itself enough; it serves to clarify my thoughts and feelings. The act of writing is an integral part of my mental life; ideas emerge, are shaped, in the act of writing.

Below could be said about my blog too..

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.