Thank you. I had the honor and privilege of being Oliver's editor at The New York Times in 2015, for his four end-of-life essays, up to two weeks before his death. I came away from that experience changed in some way. It's good to be reminded that he was much more than what people think of when they think of doctors -- he was a poet, philosopher, seeker and muse as well.
I've read the essays compiled as Gratitude by (I think) Knopf many times since May 2023. They are extraordinary. Thank you for your part in getting them to the world, for the succour they have provided me in this time. I was, and am, deeply moved by them in a way I haven't been since I read, I don't know, Charles Lamb, or Toni Morrison's Nobel lecture, or Stephen Greenblatt's gorgeous essay on Lucretius in the New Yorker a decade or so ago. Speaking of Oliver Sacks being a muse, if I may, I was actually inspired the very same day I read all four New York Times essays in May 2023 to write a song named "Bismuth." We're releasing it as a single on on July 9, though it's already on our album and available, to mark his birthday, a small offering at the altar of a vast mind. - Akhila of indie rock duo Starcracker
I appreciate your literary selections. They frequently resonate to thoughts and feelings that surprise me and represent a part of me I have not fully cherished, much less enacted.
In the Gospels, Jesus advised to take no thought for tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own. That seems to have been Buddha’s approach, too, and the approach of the Christian saints and the Sufi mystics, and other people who had become in but not of this world. Easy to say, of course, not so easy to do, but I have yet to find any evidence that it is not as Jesus said it is, and he did encourage people to gather and share their experiences and worldly possessions, so that they all could get by. That’s how Peter’s community in Acts lived. Jesus also said not to hide your lamp under a bushel, and to let your light shine forth - even if it sometimes got you into deep doo doo :-)
It's more simply known as learning to live in the moment. It's not rocket science and all the references to various religions are unnecessary. It simply takes practice but it's immensely freeing. One stops to be anxious about the immediate or imminent future and forgets to fret about the past, both of which are immutable or unknown anyway. Instead you learn to really savour the day you're having and discover a new appreciation for life's simple pleasures. Like any habit, it takes conscious practice at first - three weeks is how long it takes to form a habit they say - and the benefits are multifold. Often things have a way of working out for the better when you don't try to interfere or control, or they just fade away.
Yes, simply living in the moment sums it up very well, as does chop wood carry water. It's important, I think, to do the best we can in whatever we do, in how we relate to what each day brings. And to be who we are, instead of what other people, including our parents and grandparents, want or wanted us to be.
I drew from different spiritual traditions, because they have promoted living day to day for a very long time, yet when I observe how Christians, for example, I grew up among them, was one of them, I still deal with them all the time, they don’t seem, in the main, to have accepted what Jesus said about taking no throught for tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own.
I’m 81 and climbing. I’ve had maybe a dozen entirely different lives in one lifetime. I’m amazed that I’m still alive. I wonder every day why I’m still here? I have lots of aches and pains doctors can’t do anything about.. I dread ending up in a facility, and being so important to great industries that depend for their very survival on old people living and suffering as long as possible, which no beloved pet is allowed to do. But I keep waking up each morning, and I keep taking what the day brings and dealing with it, and that’ all I can do, and it’s all anyone can do.
Chrisitianity made it so much more complicated. I tell Christians, if they lived in my skin a little while, they might wish there was no God. I have told Atheists that, too, and that if there was no God, the topic would never come up :-). I”m not stuck on the word, God. It’s what I was raised to call whatever started everything.. Something did :-), and I’ve had many direct dealings with what is not of this world, but I’d be nuts if I believed I could prove it to anyone else :-)
A lovely bit of prose. It's timeless in its wisdom and yet perfect for the times we currently find ourselves living in. Relaxing our inhibitions and connecting with each other, because strangers are all human beings, just like you and me; fear and conventions keeps us separated when we need to find our commonality more than ever now. Remember the old saying: divide and conquer. It's what they want. Until we unite, the parasites will always control the hosts. Thank you Poetic Outlaws for this Oliver Sachs mini blueprint to live one's life by.
Just remaining quiet, being attentive, requires a lot of courage and effort. Yet, it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover action without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. In the final analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his life and ‘finding himself.’ If he persists in shifting responsibility to someone else, he fails to find the meaning of his own existence. My teacher once told me that sitting in meditation and embracing silence is an act of revolution against a soulless society.
‘The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss and start looking for answers.’ French Philosopher Henri Bergson
I was gifted "Hallucinations" by the professor of the course course Cannabis in 2020. Best professor yet, definitely saved me from an early self imposed death 😺
Thank you. I had the honor and privilege of being Oliver's editor at The New York Times in 2015, for his four end-of-life essays, up to two weeks before his death. I came away from that experience changed in some way. It's good to be reminded that he was much more than what people think of when they think of doctors -- he was a poet, philosopher, seeker and muse as well.
I've read the essays compiled as Gratitude by (I think) Knopf many times since May 2023. They are extraordinary. Thank you for your part in getting them to the world, for the succour they have provided me in this time. I was, and am, deeply moved by them in a way I haven't been since I read, I don't know, Charles Lamb, or Toni Morrison's Nobel lecture, or Stephen Greenblatt's gorgeous essay on Lucretius in the New Yorker a decade or so ago. Speaking of Oliver Sacks being a muse, if I may, I was actually inspired the very same day I read all four New York Times essays in May 2023 to write a song named "Bismuth." We're releasing it as a single on on July 9, though it's already on our album and available, to mark his birthday, a small offering at the altar of a vast mind. - Akhila of indie rock duo Starcracker
Incredible! I still can’t bring myself to finish the last few chapters of Everything in Its Place.
I appreciate your literary selections. They frequently resonate to thoughts and feelings that surprise me and represent a part of me I have not fully cherished, much less enacted.
That's an undeniable PLUS !
Oliver Sacks - I had " Lives of a Cell " by Lewis Thomas, although after moving 3 times I lost track of it. His essays, his insights - AMAZING
lives of a cell should be on the syllabus for every child. a truly marvellous book. he has another called 'the media & the snail'
I had BOTH of those, my mother had them before me. I need to dust off my library card or, more likely, get a new one,
*his other book is 'the medusa & the snail' :-)
In the Gospels, Jesus advised to take no thought for tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own. That seems to have been Buddha’s approach, too, and the approach of the Christian saints and the Sufi mystics, and other people who had become in but not of this world. Easy to say, of course, not so easy to do, but I have yet to find any evidence that it is not as Jesus said it is, and he did encourage people to gather and share their experiences and worldly possessions, so that they all could get by. That’s how Peter’s community in Acts lived. Jesus also said not to hide your lamp under a bushel, and to let your light shine forth - even if it sometimes got you into deep doo doo :-)
It's more simply known as learning to live in the moment. It's not rocket science and all the references to various religions are unnecessary. It simply takes practice but it's immensely freeing. One stops to be anxious about the immediate or imminent future and forgets to fret about the past, both of which are immutable or unknown anyway. Instead you learn to really savour the day you're having and discover a new appreciation for life's simple pleasures. Like any habit, it takes conscious practice at first - three weeks is how long it takes to form a habit they say - and the benefits are multifold. Often things have a way of working out for the better when you don't try to interfere or control, or they just fade away.
Yes, simply living in the moment sums it up very well, as does chop wood carry water. It's important, I think, to do the best we can in whatever we do, in how we relate to what each day brings. And to be who we are, instead of what other people, including our parents and grandparents, want or wanted us to be.
I drew from different spiritual traditions, because they have promoted living day to day for a very long time, yet when I observe how Christians, for example, I grew up among them, was one of them, I still deal with them all the time, they don’t seem, in the main, to have accepted what Jesus said about taking no throught for tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own.
I’m 81 and climbing. I’ve had maybe a dozen entirely different lives in one lifetime. I’m amazed that I’m still alive. I wonder every day why I’m still here? I have lots of aches and pains doctors can’t do anything about.. I dread ending up in a facility, and being so important to great industries that depend for their very survival on old people living and suffering as long as possible, which no beloved pet is allowed to do. But I keep waking up each morning, and I keep taking what the day brings and dealing with it, and that’ all I can do, and it’s all anyone can do.
Chrisitianity made it so much more complicated. I tell Christians, if they lived in my skin a little while, they might wish there was no God. I have told Atheists that, too, and that if there was no God, the topic would never come up :-). I”m not stuck on the word, God. It’s what I was raised to call whatever started everything.. Something did :-), and I’ve had many direct dealings with what is not of this world, but I’d be nuts if I believed I could prove it to anyone else :-)
wonderful writer & human
"To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient"
This is survival. Each of us can choose to be and do so much more. Time is wasting!
This is truly living
We need and need as much as we are needed
A lovely bit of prose. It's timeless in its wisdom and yet perfect for the times we currently find ourselves living in. Relaxing our inhibitions and connecting with each other, because strangers are all human beings, just like you and me; fear and conventions keeps us separated when we need to find our commonality more than ever now. Remember the old saying: divide and conquer. It's what they want. Until we unite, the parasites will always control the hosts. Thank you Poetic Outlaws for this Oliver Sachs mini blueprint to live one's life by.
“We may seek, too, a relaxing of inhibitions”
And he lived it. Such a great man.
Oliver sacks was a genius and a great man.
“we need meaning, understanding, and explanation;
we need to see over-all patterns
in our lives.”
There is one simple PATTERN of NATURE.
“The simple reality is that our planet is a single living organism, as much as our bodies are.” Thom Hartmann
The UNIverse is alive.
All the things in nature are together in one place.
Each thing is moved by nature’s pattern.
Signals give direction.
The whole divides in to parts. 🧬
The parts move around and in and out of each other.
Like water flowing in rivers 💦 and oceans 🌊 and changing into vapor 💨 and snow ⛄️❄️and ice 🧊.
The water flows in and out of creatures 🐿️ and plants 🌱.
Every part is circulating, round and round. 💫☄️🪐⛈️🦠🧬🌪️
Things unFold 🌱 then enFold 🍂 .
Everything in the UNIverse fits 🧩
because each part belongs
to the ONE whole cosmic song 🎻 and dance 💃🏻.
I can relate to this, we need to explore all aspects of our lives.
Love it
Just remaining quiet, being attentive, requires a lot of courage and effort. Yet, it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover action without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. In the final analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his life and ‘finding himself.’ If he persists in shifting responsibility to someone else, he fails to find the meaning of his own existence. My teacher once told me that sitting in meditation and embracing silence is an act of revolution against a soulless society.
‘The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss and start looking for answers.’ French Philosopher Henri Bergson
I was gifted "Hallucinations" by the professor of the course course Cannabis in 2020. Best professor yet, definitely saved me from an early self imposed death 😺