WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.839 Welcome to the Deep Dive. If you've ever wondered 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:05.099 about, well, the deep connections between our 00:00:05.099 --> 00:00:07.280 brains, our health, and the stories we tell, 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:10.060 then today's Deep Dive is definitely for you. 00:00:10.179 --> 00:00:12.750 We're focusing on Oliver Wolfe Sachs today. An 00:00:12.750 --> 00:00:14.730 extraordinary figure. Absolutely. We're going 00:00:14.730 --> 00:00:18.510 to explore the life and the incredible legacy 00:00:18.510 --> 00:00:20.829 of Sacks. He wasn't just a neurologist, was he? 00:00:20.890 --> 00:00:23.469 The New York Times had that amazing phrase for 00:00:23.469 --> 00:00:25.550 him. Oh, yeah. The poet laureate of contemporary 00:00:25.550 --> 00:00:28.010 medicine. Exactly. And also one of the great 00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:31.359 clinical writers of the 20th century. High praise 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:33.320 indeed. It really is. And that points to something 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:35.859 unique he did. So our mission today for you listening 00:00:35.859 --> 00:00:39.320 is to unpack that. How did this British doctor, 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:41.939 who was also a naturalist and a science historian, 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:45.280 how did he manage to turn clinical observations, 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:48.560 which can be quite dry, into compelling narrative 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.140 art, art that just grabbed millions of people? 00:00:51.219 --> 00:00:54.439 Right. How did he make neurology so... Well, 00:00:54.659 --> 00:00:56.700 his whole identity really rests on building that 00:00:56.700 --> 00:00:59.159 bridge. He connected the arts and sciences by 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:01.579 focusing on the individual story, his books, 00:01:01.659 --> 00:01:04.120 so many bestsellers. They were basically collections 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:07.719 of these incredibly detailed case studies, people 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:10.239 dealing with complex neurological issues. Sometimes 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:12.019 he even wrote about himself. And he didn't just 00:01:12.019 --> 00:01:14.159 list symptoms. He tried to show us their inner 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:16.819 world, didn't he? That was the key. He illuminated 00:01:16.819 --> 00:01:18.819 their experience. Okay, so let's start at the 00:01:18.819 --> 00:01:21.379 beginning. Because his upbringing, it sounds 00:01:21.379 --> 00:01:23.560 like it was steeped in medicine from day one. 00:01:23.700 --> 00:01:26.760 Oh, intensely so. Born in Cricklewood, London. 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:31.540 Youngest of four kids. Jewish family. And medicine 00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:33.859 was the family business. His father was a doctor. 00:01:34.099 --> 00:01:38.280 Samuel Sachs, yes. But his mother, Muriel Elsie 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:41.079 Landau, she was a real trailblazer. One of the 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:44.540 very first female surgeons in England. Wow. So 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:47.340 a very high -achieving scientific household. 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:49.959 Extremely. And that environment was, well, maybe 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.140 clinically stimulating is the right word, but 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:55.599 also intense. There's this one detail about his 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.439 early exposure that's quite shocking, actually. 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:01.439 His mother, trying to teach him anatomy, she 00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:04.019 would bring home deformed fetuses from her work. 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:06.060 Bring them home. Yeah, and dissect them with 00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:08.560 young Oliver, right there, to teach him anatomy, 00:02:08.740 --> 00:02:12.629 dissection techniques. That's... That's an incredibly 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:15.310 direct way to learn. Very, very clinical. It 00:02:15.310 --> 00:02:18.090 really is. It suggests this environment where 00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:21.629 maybe objective science was prioritized over... 00:02:21.909 --> 00:02:23.729 You know, the subject of the emotional side of 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:25.669 things. Does that set up a conflict later? You 00:02:25.669 --> 00:02:28.389 mentioned he struggled with real medicine. Did 00:02:28.389 --> 00:02:31.469 this early sort of hyper rational training play 00:02:31.469 --> 00:02:33.969 into that? I think it absolutely does. It creates 00:02:33.969 --> 00:02:36.469 this lifelong tension. On one hand, you have 00:02:36.469 --> 00:02:38.909 this incredible intellectual and medical family 00:02:38.909 --> 00:02:41.909 history. His cousin was Robert Allman, the Nobel 00:02:41.909 --> 00:02:44.150 winner. Abba Eben, the statesman, was family, 00:02:44.189 --> 00:02:46.930 too. A powerhouse family. Right. But on the other 00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:50.129 hand, the emotional groundwork seems fractured. 00:02:50.859 --> 00:02:53.879 Especially by some early trauma. Ah, yes. Evacuation 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:55.560 during the war. That must have been terrifying. 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:58.840 It sounds like it was. December 1939. He's only 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:00.979 six years old. He and his older brother, Michael, 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:03.300 get evacuated from London because of the Blitz. 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:04.919 And sent off to boarding school. In Midlands, 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:07.620 yeah. But this wasn't some idyllic country school. 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:11.120 The sources paint a grim picture. Ah, so. Meager 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:13.719 rations of turnips and beetroot. Constant hunger. 00:03:13.939 --> 00:03:16.639 Ah. And cruel punishments at the hands of a sadistic 00:03:16.639 --> 00:03:19.729 headmaster. Just... Awful stuff. That kind of 00:03:19.729 --> 00:03:22.610 experience at age six, that leaves a mark. A 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:24.789 deep one. He wrote about it years later in his 00:03:24.789 --> 00:03:27.530 first autobiography, Uncle Tunstan. The suffering, 00:03:27.669 --> 00:03:30.990 the deprivation. It seems that early separation 00:03:30.990 --> 00:03:33.169 and trauma, happening right when you're forming 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:35.330 attachments, it's a key part of understanding 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:38.789 SACS. Maybe it fueled that later search for order, 00:03:38.849 --> 00:03:41.229 for control. So when he gets back home at age 00:03:41.229 --> 00:03:44.530 10, he doesn't just, like, relax. No. He dives 00:03:44.530 --> 00:03:46.430 headfirst into something structured, something 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:50.199 controllable. He becomes this incredibly focused 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:52.479 amateur chemist. Under his Uncle Dave's guidance, 00:03:52.699 --> 00:03:54.860 that's the Uncle Tungsten from the title. That's 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:57.319 the one. And this intense focus, this ability 00:03:57.319 --> 00:03:59.879 to just immerse himself completely, that's classic 00:03:59.879 --> 00:04:01.860 Sax, isn't it? We see it again and again. Whether 00:04:01.860 --> 00:04:04.560 it's chemicals or later marine life or the human 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:07.680 brain, he just dives deep. And that focus eventually 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.560 took him to Oxford, Queens College, in 51. Started 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:14.120 with preclinical studies, physiology, biology. 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:17.699 Got his B .A. in 56. Pure science, initially. 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.939 Right. But then comes this collision, the sort 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:23.800 of detached science he'd learned, maybe echoing 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:25.740 that early clinical exposure from his mother. 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.720 It runs up against the messy reality of human 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.319 suffering, his first big professional crisis. 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.879 What triggered it? It was about meaning, really. 00:04:34.019 --> 00:04:36.620 He chose this research project on Jamaica ginger. 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:40.240 What's that? It was this toxic substance, often 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.300 abused, that caused terrible, irreversible nerve 00:04:43.300 --> 00:04:46.050 damage. Pretty grim stuff to study. Sounds isolating. 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:49.230 It was. And he felt he had no guidance. He fell 00:04:49.230 --> 00:04:51.350 into this deep depression. He described it as 00:04:51.350 --> 00:04:55.649 a kind of quiet but agitated despair. He'd mastered 00:04:55.649 --> 00:04:58.389 the science maybe, but he felt totally lost about 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:00.329 the point of it all. Where was the human element? 00:05:00.509 --> 00:05:03.790 So his parents and his tutor, I think. Yeah. 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:06.189 They suggested something totally different. Radically 00:05:06.189 --> 00:05:07.829 different. Forget the lab. Go do hard physical 00:05:07.829 --> 00:05:09.870 work. We were. On the kibbutz in Israel. Ein 00:05:09.870 --> 00:05:13.259 Hashafet. Summer of 1955. And did it work? Apparently, 00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:17.560 yes. He called the hard laborer an anodyne, a 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:19.639 painkiller for his sort of intellectual torture. 00:05:19.899 --> 00:05:22.240 He threw himself into it, lost something like 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:23.980 60 pounds. It was physical. It was communal. 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.180 It seemed to heal something in him. A physical 00:05:27.180 --> 00:05:29.439 cure for an intellectual problem. You could say 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:32.079 that. And the insight he gained there was crucial 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:34.600 for everything that followed. He realized his 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:36.339 science background hadn't actually prepared him 00:05:36.339 --> 00:05:39.279 for. For real medicine, as he called it. Exactly. 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:41.639 And what did he mean by that? It wasn't just 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.180 about diagnosing illness. It was about? Listening. 00:05:44.819 --> 00:05:47.500 Really listening to patients. Trying to genuinely 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:49.620 imagine their experience, their predicament. 00:05:50.139 --> 00:05:53.019 Taking responsibility for them as whole people. 00:05:53.220 --> 00:05:55.199 Moving beyond the technical stuff. Way beyond. 00:05:55.540 --> 00:05:58.019 He saw that medicine forces you to grapple with 00:05:58.019 --> 00:06:00.639 these much graver questions, ethical questions. 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:03.819 But the quality of someone's life. Is this life 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:06.680 under these conditions worth living? That realization. 00:06:07.739 --> 00:06:10.399 that empathy and narrative are just as vital 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:13.879 as pathology. That's the seed of his whole unique 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:15.939 approach. And he carried that new perspective 00:06:15.939 --> 00:06:18.759 when he finished his medical degrees in 58. He 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:22.819 did. BMBCH. Ready, perhaps, for a different kind 00:06:22.819 --> 00:06:25.060 of medicine. OK, so he finishes his training 00:06:25.060 --> 00:06:26.699 in the UK, but he doesn't stay. He lives for 00:06:26.699 --> 00:06:29.420 Canada. Right on his 27th birthday, actually. 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:33.379 July 9th, 1960. Flew to Montreal. He had this 00:06:33.379 --> 00:06:36.100 brief idea about joining the Royal Canadian Air 00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:38.500 Force, doing medical research for them. How did 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:41.379 that go? Not well. He kept making mistakes in 00:06:41.379 --> 00:06:46.120 the lab, destroying data, losing samples, things 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:48.899 like that. Oh, dear. Not ideal for a researcher. 00:06:49.180 --> 00:06:51.399 Not at all. His supervisors basically said, look, 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:53.220 maybe this isn't for you. Your heart doesn't 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:55.480 see it. Take some time, travel, think things 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:57.620 over. So that push actually sent him south. Led 00:06:57.620 --> 00:06:59.680 him straight to the U .S., yeah. Arrived in 1961, 00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:02.519 did his internship in San Francisco, then residency 00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:04.620 in neurology and neuropathology down at UCLA. 00:07:04.980 --> 00:07:07.939 And California. This seems to be where the quiet, 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:11.120 shy Sacks embraces a completely different lifestyle. 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:13.959 Almost deliberately extreme. It's such a paradoxical 00:07:13.959 --> 00:07:16.060 time in his life. He's living in Topanga Canyon. 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:18.579 training seriously as a neurologist. But he's 00:07:18.579 --> 00:07:22.540 also diving into, as the sources put it, staggering 00:07:22.540 --> 00:07:25.720 bouts of pharmacological experimentation. Recreational 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:28.139 drugs. Oh, yeah. He wrote about it quite openly 00:07:28.139 --> 00:07:30.139 later, especially in his book Hallucinations. 00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:33.060 He was really pushing boundaries, exploring consciousness 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:35.240 chemically. And physically, too. Right. This 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:37.160 wasn't just intellectual exploration. There was 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:39.579 the muscle beach connection. Fierce bodybuilding. 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.339 Yeah. Not just casual workouts. He was a serious 00:07:42.339 --> 00:07:45.120 power lifter. Is it true he held a state record? 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:49.399 Apparently so. A California record for a full 00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:53.259 squad with 600 pounds on his shoulders. 600 pounds. 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:56.240 That's incredible. It's hard to picture the thoughtful, 00:07:56.459 --> 00:07:59.500 gentle Dr. Sachs doing that. It really is. The 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:01.860 contrast is jarring. And add to that, he was 00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:03.939 a major biker. Leather jacket, the whole deal. 00:08:04.139 --> 00:08:06.360 Racked up over 100 ,000 miles on his motorcycle. 00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:11.160 Wow. So drugs, intense bodybuilding, motorcycling. 00:08:12.009 --> 00:08:14.490 What was driving all this? Was it a reaction 00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:17.170 against his reserved nature? A search for sensation? 00:08:17.709 --> 00:08:19.250 Yeah, it feels like that, doesn't it? Yeah. Maybe 00:08:19.250 --> 00:08:21.810 a need for physical control, for intense feeling 00:08:21.810 --> 00:08:24.629 to counterbalance that incredibly active inner 00:08:24.629 --> 00:08:27.870 world and his profound shyness. But then it just 00:08:27.870 --> 00:08:32.070 stops. Abruptly, yes. He gave it all up. The 00:08:32.070 --> 00:08:34.210 drugs, the intense bodybuilding, the motorcycle, 00:08:34.490 --> 00:08:38.350 casual sex. He just cut it all off. Why the sudden 00:08:38.350 --> 00:08:41.159 change? It seems like he reached a limit. Maybe 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:43.159 he exhausted that need for external extremes. 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.980 This break, plus his move over to New York City, 00:08:47.139 --> 00:08:49.720 kind of cleared the decks. It made space for 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.139 the next big shift, his professional epiphany. 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:55.240 And that epiphany came under the influence. According 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:57.720 to his own accounts, yeah. Amphetamine assisted. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:59.679 And it was sparked by reading something quite 00:08:59.679 --> 00:09:02.120 obscure. What was the reading? The work of a 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:05.429 19th century doctor named Edward Living. Living 00:09:05.429 --> 00:09:08.409 wrote about migraine, but he did it in this incredibly 00:09:08.409 --> 00:09:11.570 detailed, narrative, empathetic way. He wasn't 00:09:11.570 --> 00:09:13.850 just listing symptoms. He was describing the 00:09:13.850 --> 00:09:16.970 patient's experience. Ah, so Sachs saw a model 00:09:16.970 --> 00:09:19.570 there. Exactly. He saw his calling. He decided 00:09:19.570 --> 00:09:21.690 he wanted to chronicle the oddities of the nervous 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:24.090 system, but with that same narrative depth, that 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:26.649 same focus on the person. He wanted to be the 00:09:26.649 --> 00:09:29.269 living of our time. He found his mission, merging 00:09:29.269 --> 00:09:31.250 the clinical with the narrative. That was it, 00:09:31.370 --> 00:09:33.830 focusing on the person. Not just the pathology. 00:09:34.190 --> 00:09:36.429 And interestingly, even after finding this path 00:09:36.429 --> 00:09:40.429 in America, he never quite became fully American. 00:09:40.629 --> 00:09:42.769 He remained a resident alien. For his entire 00:09:42.769 --> 00:09:44.990 life, yeah. He actually said he quite liked the 00:09:44.990 --> 00:09:47.450 term. Resident alien. How did he feel about it? 00:09:47.570 --> 00:09:50.309 He said, it's how I feel. I'm a sympathetic, 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:54.509 resident, sort of visiting alien. That perspective 00:09:54.509 --> 00:09:57.960 maybe. Being slightly outside, looking in. Perhaps 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:00.320 that was crucial for maintaining that observational 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:02.779 narrative stance. An outsider's eye, even after 00:10:02.779 --> 00:10:06.919 decades. So Sachs finds his calling, moves to 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:10.039 New York, and his really career -defining work 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:13.360 starts around 1966. He begins working at Beth 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:15.700 Abraham Hospital. That's in the Bronx, a chronic 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:18.200 care place. Exactly. And it was there he encountered 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:20.759 this extraordinary group of patients, the ones 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:22.820 who had formed the basis of awakenings. These 00:10:22.820 --> 00:10:24.259 were the survivors of the sleeping sickness. 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:28.000 From way back in the 1920s. Encephalitis lethargica, 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:30.600 yeah. People who had been essentially frozen, 00:10:30.779 --> 00:10:33.539 catatonic, locked inside themselves for decades, 00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:36.320 some since the 1920s. Just unimaginable. And 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:39.059 then comes this new drug. Levodopa or L -dopa. 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:41.799 It was just becoming available. SACS started 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:43.600 giving it to these patients. And the results 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:46.960 were? Initially, miraculous. Yeah. Absolutely 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:49.360 stunning. People who hadn't moved or spoken in 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:53.190 40 years suddenly woke up. They started moving, 00:10:53.389 --> 00:10:55.830 talking, engaging with the world again. It was 00:10:55.830 --> 00:10:59.190 the basis for his 1973 book, Awakenings. But 00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:01.450 it wasn't just a simple miracle cure, was it? 00:11:01.470 --> 00:11:04.169 No, that's the tragic complexity. The book and 00:11:04.169 --> 00:11:06.809 Sachs himself really grappled with this. The 00:11:06.809 --> 00:11:09.129 initial awakening was often followed by problems, 00:11:09.330 --> 00:11:12.309 severe side effects like terrible A -tics or 00:11:12.309 --> 00:11:14.850 obsessive behaviors. And sometimes they slipped 00:11:14.850 --> 00:11:17.029 back. Sometimes they relapsed into their previous 00:11:17.029 --> 00:11:18.870 state, which must have been utterly heartbreaking. 00:11:19.169 --> 00:11:22.029 It raised huge ethical questions for Sachs. Was 00:11:22.029 --> 00:11:24.830 it right? Was it kind to give them this glimpse 00:11:24.830 --> 00:11:27.850 of life only for it to be potentially snatched 00:11:27.850 --> 00:11:30.570 away or distorted? That human drama, the ethical 00:11:30.570 --> 00:11:32.409 weight, that's what made the book so powerful, 00:11:32.509 --> 00:11:35.269 wasn't it? Absolutely. It resonated far beyond 00:11:35.269 --> 00:11:36.970 medicine. You had the big Hollywood movie in 00:11:36.970 --> 00:11:39.889 1990 with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. 00:11:40.049 --> 00:11:42.309 Denominated, yeah. But even before that, a British 00:11:42.309 --> 00:11:45.909 documentary in 74. And it kept inspiring adaptations 00:11:45.909 --> 00:11:48.909 of ballet in 2010. An opera just a couple years 00:11:48.909 --> 00:11:51.669 ago by Tobias Picker. It really captured the 00:11:51.669 --> 00:11:54.370 imagination. It did. And it even helped lead 00:11:54.370 --> 00:11:56.289 to the founding of the Institute for Music and 00:11:56.289 --> 00:11:59.129 Neurologic Function, recognizing that maybe music 00:11:59.129 --> 00:12:01.710 and other non -drug therapies could also reach 00:12:01.710 --> 00:12:04.490 these patients. They honored Sachs twice for 00:12:04.490 --> 00:12:07.340 his work in that area. So how did he develop 00:12:07.340 --> 00:12:09.720 this writing style, this ability to turn these 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:12.059 complex cases into such compelling narratives? 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:14.759 He was very intentional about it. He saw himself 00:12:14.759 --> 00:12:17.179 reviving an older tradition. He talked about 00:12:17.179 --> 00:12:20.039 19th century clinical anecdotes. Not dry case 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:23.659 reports. Definitely not. He wanted detailed narrative 00:12:23.659 --> 00:12:26.259 histories. He even called his style novelistic. 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:29.000 The goal wasn't just the diagnosis. He was capturing 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:31.220 the person adapting to their situation, their 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:33.480 unique world. Were there specific influences 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:36.659 that helped him hone that? Two really stand out. 00:12:36.700 --> 00:12:39.419 First, the Russian neuropsychologist A .R. Luria. 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:42.360 Luria's work? Yeah. How did that connect? Luria 00:12:42.360 --> 00:12:44.980 also wrote these incredibly detailed, almost 00:12:44.980 --> 00:12:48.299 biographical case histories. Sachs found them 00:12:48.299 --> 00:12:51.159 hugely inspiring. They actually started corresponding 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:54.600 in 1973 and became close friends. pen pals, really. 00:12:55.259 --> 00:12:58.799 Luria validated Sachs' whole approach, the deep 00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:01.019 observation, the narrative focus. And the second 00:13:01.019 --> 00:13:03.559 influence. The poet W .H. Auden. They were friends. 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:06.059 After Sachs published his first book, Migraine, 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:09.019 in 1970, Auden gave him this piece of advice 00:13:09.019 --> 00:13:11.679 that Sachs said was crucial. Auden told him, 00:13:11.740 --> 00:13:13.960 be metaphorical, be mythical, be whatever you 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:16.720 need. Wow. That sounds like permission almost 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.799 for a scientist to use literary tools. Exactly. 00:13:19.799 --> 00:13:22.179 Permission to blend the factual with the philosophical, 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:25.159 the clinical with the poetic, to use metaphor 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:28.080 to explain the mind. And he ran with that. He 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:29.919 really did. He started writing prolifically, 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:31.940 not just for medical journals, but for places 00:13:31.940 --> 00:13:33.879 like the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.340 He wanted to reach a general audience. Which 00:13:36.340 --> 00:13:38.639 explains why he got that Lewis Thomas Prize for 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:40.480 writing about science. He was bridging that gap. 00:13:40.580 --> 00:13:43.360 Precisely. He made neuroscience accessible and 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:46.240 deeply human. Okay, so Auden basically tells 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:49.860 him, go ahead, be literary. And Sax definitely 00:13:49.860 --> 00:13:51.820 takes that to heart in the books that followed 00:13:51.820 --> 00:13:54.259 Awakenings. Let's talk about some of those key 00:13:54.259 --> 00:13:56.639 case studies, starting with maybe his most famous 00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:00.139 title. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. 00:14:00.649 --> 00:14:04.409 From 1985. That title alone, it immediately tells 00:14:04.409 --> 00:14:06.590 you something profound and strange is going on. 00:14:06.690 --> 00:14:08.730 It's brilliant, isn't it? It makes this complex 00:14:08.730 --> 00:14:11.809 condition, visual agnosia, instantly relatable 00:14:11.809 --> 00:14:15.009 almost, the inability to recognize objects or 00:14:15.009 --> 00:14:17.330 people, even though your vision itself is fine. 00:14:17.509 --> 00:14:20.090 So the man in the title, Dr. P, I think he calls 00:14:20.090 --> 00:14:23.009 him. He literally couldn't recognize his wife's 00:14:23.009 --> 00:14:25.629 face. Or common objects. He'd see the features, 00:14:25.850 --> 00:14:28.190 the lines, the colors, but his brain couldn't 00:14:28.190 --> 00:14:30.309 put them together into a meaningful whole. So 00:14:30.309 --> 00:14:32.309 yes, he might pat a fire hydrant thinking it 00:14:32.309 --> 00:14:35.470 was a child, or famously try to lift his wife's 00:14:35.470 --> 00:14:37.230 head off her shoulders thinking it was his hat. 00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:40.409 Goodness, how did Sachs use that case? What was 00:14:40.409 --> 00:14:43.090 the deeper point? For Sachs. It was a window 00:14:43.090 --> 00:14:46.350 into how our minds construct reality. What happens 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:48.590 when that meaning -making software breaks down? 00:14:48.789 --> 00:14:51.950 It showed how fragile our sense of a coherent 00:14:51.950 --> 00:14:55.090 world actually is. We take perception for granted, 00:14:55.169 --> 00:14:58.350 but Dr. P's story showed the complex processes 00:14:58.350 --> 00:15:00.870 underneath. And like Awakenings, it had this 00:15:00.870 --> 00:15:03.019 crossover appeal, right? There was an opera. 00:15:03.139 --> 00:15:05.659 Yes. Michael Nyman adapted it into an opera in 00:15:05.659 --> 00:15:08.879 1986. Again, these stories just tapped into something 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:11.620 fundamental about human experience. OK, moving 00:15:11.620 --> 00:15:15.799 forward a bit to 1995, an anthropologist on Mars. 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:19.700 This feels like a shift, maybe looking at neurodiversity. 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:21.500 I think that's exactly right. He was starting 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:24.179 to explore difference, not just as deficit, but 00:15:24.179 --> 00:15:26.519 as a. Well, difference, the title piece is about 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:29.320 Temple Grandin. The autistic professor and animal 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:31.779 behavior expert. Right. And that essay won a 00:15:31.779 --> 00:15:35.019 Polk Award. In this book, Sachs really leaned 00:15:35.019 --> 00:15:37.320 into the idea that neurological conditions could 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:39.460 be more than just impairments. What did he say 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:41.500 in the preface? Something about latent powers. 00:15:41.879 --> 00:15:44.340 Yeah, he wrote that these conditions can play 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:47.039 a paradoxical role by bringing out latent powers, 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.019 developments, evolutions, forms of life that 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.889 might never be seen in their absence. He was 00:15:52.889 --> 00:15:55.090 looking for the adaptations, the unique strengths. 00:15:55.470 --> 00:15:58.610 So with Temple Grandin, what did he see? He saw 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:00.549 her description of feeling like an anthropologist 00:16:00.549 --> 00:16:03.669 on Mars, trying to understand neurotypical social 00:16:03.669 --> 00:16:06.950 cues, not just as a difficulty, but as a perspective. 00:16:07.649 --> 00:16:10.110 Her autistic mind, her visual thinking gave her 00:16:10.110 --> 00:16:12.590 incredible insights into animal behavior and 00:16:12.590 --> 00:16:15.450 systems that maybe a normal mind would miss entirely. 00:16:15.669 --> 00:16:18.759 He celebrated her unique way of being. Fascinating. 00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:22.000 Then in 1997, The Island of the Colorblind. This 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:23.940 one seems different again, part travelogue, part 00:16:23.940 --> 00:16:26.080 science. It really is a blend. The first part 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.460 is about this small island community in Micronesia 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:31.059 where a high percentage of people have achomatopsia. 00:16:31.179 --> 00:16:33.720 Total colorblindness. Total colorblindness, plus 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:36.460 often very poor vision and bright light. Sachs 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:38.320 explores what their world is like, how they adapt. 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:40.299 But the second part of the book, Psychat Island, 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:42.340 that's where he makes this unexpected serious 00:16:42.340 --> 00:16:45.000 scientific contribution. That section focuses 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:47.700 on Guam, right, and this devastating neurological 00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:50.860 disease. Yes, the Chamorro people of Guam had 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:53.799 this incredibly high rate of a disease they called 00:16:53.799 --> 00:16:57.299 lyticobotic. It was this unique, awful mix of 00:16:57.299 --> 00:17:01.100 ALS, dementia, and Parkinson's symptoms. And 00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:03.279 scientists were baffled about the cause for decades. 00:17:04.089 --> 00:17:07.049 So Sacks the storyteller becomes Sacks the detective? 00:17:07.490 --> 00:17:09.730 Pretty much. He worked with other researchers, 00:17:09.930 --> 00:17:12.930 notably Paul Allen Cox, and they started piecing 00:17:12.930 --> 00:17:14.930 together an environmental explanation involving 00:17:14.930 --> 00:17:18.329 a toxin called BMAA. From the cycadnut, a traditional 00:17:18.329 --> 00:17:21.569 food. Exactly. But eating the nut directly wasn't 00:17:21.569 --> 00:17:24.490 the whole story. The key insight, the mechanism 00:17:24.490 --> 00:17:27.430 they proposed, was biomagnification. Okay, let's 00:17:27.430 --> 00:17:29.309 break that down for listeners. Biomagnification. 00:17:29.390 --> 00:17:31.950 Right. It means a toxin gets more and more concentrated 00:17:31.950 --> 00:17:34.819 as it moves up the food chain. So the cycad nut 00:17:34.819 --> 00:17:38.500 has some BMAA, but flying foxes' bats ate huge 00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:40.880 amounts of these nuts. Ah, so the toxin builds 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.119 up in the bat. Massively. It gets concentrated 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.859 in their tissues. And the Chamorro people traditionally 00:17:45.859 --> 00:17:47.940 ate these flying foxes. So they were getting 00:17:47.940 --> 00:17:50.539 a huge amplified dose of the toxin through the 00:17:50.539 --> 00:17:53.220 bats? That was the hypothesis. A much higher 00:17:53.220 --> 00:17:55.519 dose than just from the nuts alone, potentially 00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:58.730 explaining the high rates of lyticobotic. Sachs 00:17:58.730 --> 00:18:00.930 actually co -authored scientific papers on this. 00:18:01.069 --> 00:18:04.430 It shows his research went way beyond just collecting 00:18:04.430 --> 00:18:06.890 stories. Really demonstrates his scientific depth 00:18:06.890 --> 00:18:10.970 alongside the narrative skill. Okay, one more 00:18:10.970 --> 00:18:13.930 key book. Hallucinations from 2012. This was 00:18:13.930 --> 00:18:16.369 important because it tackled a really stigmatized 00:18:16.369 --> 00:18:19.190 topic. People hear hallucinations and immediately 00:18:19.190 --> 00:18:22.329 think madness. But Sachs argued it's much broader 00:18:22.329 --> 00:18:24.190 than that. Much broader. He pointed out they're 00:18:24.190 --> 00:18:26.200 actually quite common. linked to things lots 00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:28.859 of people experience. Sensory deprivation, high 00:18:28.859 --> 00:18:32.160 fevers, intoxication, certain illnesses, even 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:34.420 just migraines or falling asleep. He wanted to 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:36.980 normalize it in a way. Definitely. And he highlighted 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:39.180 lesser known conditions like Charles Bonnet syndrome. 00:18:39.460 --> 00:18:41.180 What's that one? It affects people who've lost 00:18:41.180 --> 00:18:43.279 their sight, maybe through macular degeneration 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:46.440 or glaucoma. They start having complex visual 00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:49.980 hallucinations, seeing patterns, faces, whole 00:18:49.980 --> 00:18:52.359 scenes, even though they know they're not real 00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:55.269 and they have no psychiatric illness. Sachs wanted 00:18:55.269 --> 00:18:57.990 to reassure people experiencing this that they 00:18:57.990 --> 00:19:00.109 weren't losing their minds. And throughout all 00:19:00.109 --> 00:19:02.849 these books, the constant thread is Sachs himself 00:19:02.849 --> 00:19:05.789 often becomes the subject. He had to, didn't 00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:08.450 he? His own life was full of neurological events, 00:19:08.630 --> 00:19:11.829 a leg to stand on back in 84. That was all about 00:19:11.829 --> 00:19:14.009 his recovery from a terrible mountaineering accident. 00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:16.880 In Norway. Where he badly injured his leg. Yes, 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:19.680 and he experienced this profound disconnection 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:21.880 from his own limb, problems with his body image. 00:19:22.099 --> 00:19:25.339 It was a deeply personal exploration of neurology. 00:19:25.400 --> 00:19:28.079 And later, his eyesight. In a Mind's Eye from 00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:30.559 2010, he wrote about losing depth perception, 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:33.380 his stereoscopic vision, and then eventually 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:35.460 losing sight in his right eye after treatment 00:19:35.460 --> 00:19:38.400 for eye cancer, a melanoma. So being both the 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:40.480 doctor observing and the patient experiencing, 00:19:40.680 --> 00:19:43.220 that must have shaped everything. profoundly. 00:19:43.220 --> 00:19:46.420 It gave his empathy such authenticity. It wasn't 00:19:46.420 --> 00:19:48.319 just theoretical. He knew what it felt like when 00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:51.359 the brain went awry. It validated his whole narrative 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:53.490 approach from the inside out. So we have this 00:19:53.490 --> 00:19:56.369 image of Sachs, the warm, curious, empathetic 00:19:56.369 --> 00:19:59.130 doctor in his writings. But the private man sounds 00:19:59.130 --> 00:20:01.809 like he was full of contradictions, very shy. 00:20:01.950 --> 00:20:04.150 Deeply shy. He called it a disease, something 00:20:04.150 --> 00:20:06.690 that really hampered him his whole life, especially 00:20:06.690 --> 00:20:08.829 in social interactions. And part of that shyness, 00:20:08.849 --> 00:20:11.349 maybe even a root cause, was linked to another 00:20:11.349 --> 00:20:14.450 neurological condition he had. Yes. Something 00:20:14.450 --> 00:20:17.589 he didn't fully realize the extent of until he 00:20:17.589 --> 00:20:21.700 was well into middle age. Prosopagnosia. Face 00:20:21.700 --> 00:20:24.559 blindness. Exactly. The inability to recognize 00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:27.180 familiar faces. Imagine trying to build relationships, 00:20:27.460 --> 00:20:29.559 network professionally, or even just navigate 00:20:29.559 --> 00:20:31.299 daily life when you might not recognize someone 00:20:31.299 --> 00:20:33.519 you met yesterday, or even a close colleague. 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:36.420 That's staggering. To be this incredible observer 00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:39.579 of human minds, yet be unable to recognize human 00:20:39.579 --> 00:20:42.220 faces, how did that affect him? It must have 00:20:42.220 --> 00:20:45.339 been profoundly isolating. There's that famous 00:20:45.339 --> 00:20:47.599 story he tells about being in a waiting room, 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:50.240 seeing this large bearded man, and almost bumping 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:53.349 into him. He started to apologize. And then he 00:20:53.349 --> 00:20:55.710 realized the man was his own reflection in a 00:20:55.710 --> 00:20:58.009 mirror. He sometimes didn't recognize himself. 00:20:58.329 --> 00:21:01.150 Wow. That puts his observational skills in a 00:21:01.150 --> 00:21:03.599 new light, doesn't it? Maybe writing detailed 00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:06.680 narratives about people was his way of recognizing 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:09.180 them, of making sense of them without relying 00:21:09.180 --> 00:21:11.700 on facial cues. That's a fascinating thought, 00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:14.240 turning people into stories as a compensation 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:17.299 strategy. It certainly focuses you on other details, 00:21:17.539 --> 00:21:20.759 voice, mannerisms, the narrative itself. Despite 00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:24.420 the shyness and the internal focus, he kept up 00:21:24.420 --> 00:21:26.400 those intense physical pursuits we talked about 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.140 earlier. Oh, yes. The drive for physical activity 00:21:29.140 --> 00:21:31.579 never really left him. The powerlifting might 00:21:31.579 --> 00:21:33.720 have faded, but he was a lifelong, passionate 00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:36.200 swimmer. Known for swimming in open water near 00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:38.380 the Bronx. Yeah, near City Island. Apparently 00:21:38.380 --> 00:21:41.180 swam in very cold water. Really pushed himself 00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:42.839 physically. It seems like it was always this 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:45.259 necessary outlet for him, a way to balance the 00:21:45.259 --> 00:21:48.000 intense mental life. But his personal life, his 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.069 romantic life. That remained very hidden for 00:21:51.069 --> 00:21:54.089 a long, long time. Extremely guarded. Sources 00:21:54.089 --> 00:21:56.369 say he was celibate for a huge stretch of his 00:21:56.369 --> 00:22:00.410 life, something like 35 years, from his mid -40s 00:22:00.410 --> 00:22:03.710 right up into his late 70s. Why so private? Was 00:22:03.710 --> 00:22:06.819 it the shyness? Or something else. Probably a 00:22:06.819 --> 00:22:09.880 combination of things. The shyness, the prosopagnosia, 00:22:09.900 --> 00:22:12.740 making intimacy difficult, perhaps societal attitudes 00:22:12.740 --> 00:22:16.140 at the time. He didn't publicly discuss his homosexuality 00:22:16.140 --> 00:22:19.380 until he was 81. That was in his 2015 autobiography, 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:22.440 On the Move. Yes. He finally addressed it openly 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:24.779 then. It was quite a revelation for many readers 00:22:24.779 --> 00:22:27.160 who only knew the public persona. And that... 00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:30.079 Late life openness coincided with him finding 00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:32.539 a partner. It did. From 2009 until he died in 00:22:32.539 --> 00:22:34.980 2015, he was in a committed relationship with 00:22:34.980 --> 00:22:37.220 the writer Bill Hayes. Hayes wrote about their 00:22:37.220 --> 00:22:39.339 time together. Yes, in a beautiful memoir called 00:22:39.339 --> 00:22:42.119 Insomniac City. It gives us a very touching glimpse 00:22:42.119 --> 00:22:44.960 into Sax's later years, showing a side of him 00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:46.819 that was finally able to embrace that kind of 00:22:46.819 --> 00:22:49.480 deep personal connection after a lifetime of 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:51.819 keeping it at bay. So a kind of quiet resolution 00:22:51.819 --> 00:22:54.759 to that long struggle. And then his final illness 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:57.839 came quite quickly. Relatively, yes. In January 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:00.759 2015, they discovered that the ocular melanoma 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:03.660 he'd had years before had metastasized to his 00:23:03.660 --> 00:23:06.140 liver. And he knew the prognosis was terminal. 00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:09.240 How did he approach that? With the same intellectual 00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:12.599 curiosity and, well, grace that he approached 00:23:12.599 --> 00:23:15.119 everything else, he wrote this incredibly moving 00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:17.859 op -ed for the New York Times announcing his 00:23:17.859 --> 00:23:21.230 illness. What was his message? He said he wasn't 00:23:21.230 --> 00:23:24.289 focused on fear, but on living the time he had 00:23:24.289 --> 00:23:26.650 left as richly and productively as possible. 00:23:26.829 --> 00:23:30.009 He wanted to deepen friendships, say his farewells, 00:23:30.009 --> 00:23:33.430 write more, travel if he could, and just gain 00:23:33.430 --> 00:23:35.450 new understanding. It was remarkable. A very 00:23:35.450 --> 00:23:37.750 Sachs approach to the end. Completely. He died 00:23:37.750 --> 00:23:40.769 later that year, August 2015, at age 82. He was 00:23:40.769 --> 00:23:43.549 so beloved by readers, by the general public. 00:23:43.589 --> 00:23:45.740 But you mentioned earlier not... Everyone in 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:47.680 the medical or academic world was completely 00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:49.720 on board with his approach. That's right. He 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:52.400 definitely had his critics, particularly within 00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:54.380 the more traditional medical establishment. What 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:56.359 was their main issue? Mostly his methodology. 00:23:56.380 --> 00:23:59.759 They felt his work was too idiosyncratic, you 00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:02.740 know, too reliant on these individual detailed 00:24:02.740 --> 00:24:06.460 stories, anecdotes, essentially rather than large 00:24:06.460 --> 00:24:09.099 scale quantitative data from clinical trials. 00:24:10.109 --> 00:24:12.470 Not scientific enough in the modern sense. That 00:24:12.470 --> 00:24:14.809 was the argument. That it was interesting literature, 00:24:14.950 --> 00:24:17.109 maybe, but not rigorous science. And there was 00:24:17.109 --> 00:24:19.509 also criticism from the disability studies community. 00:24:19.730 --> 00:24:22.349 That sounds like a different angle. It was. And 00:24:22.349 --> 00:24:24.369 in some ways, a sharper critique of the narrative 00:24:24.369 --> 00:24:27.430 style itself. Some activists and academics felt 00:24:27.430 --> 00:24:30.410 that by focusing on these often quite extraordinary, 00:24:30.549 --> 00:24:33.349 even bizarre cases. Like the man mistaking his 00:24:33.349 --> 00:24:36.210 wife for a hat. Exactly. They argued he risked 00:24:36.210 --> 00:24:39.259 romanticizing or aestheticizing disability. Turning 00:24:39.259 --> 00:24:41.460 patients into fascinating literary characters. 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:44.660 Maybe instead of focusing on the everyday struggles, 00:24:44.779 --> 00:24:47.420 the societal barriers, the systemic discrimination 00:24:47.420 --> 00:24:49.900 faced by people with disabilities. There was 00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:52.359 that very pointed phrase someone used. Tom Shakespeare, 00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:54.619 the British sociologist and disability rights 00:24:54.619 --> 00:24:57.700 activist. He called Sachs the man who mistook 00:24:57.700 --> 00:25:00.700 his patience for a literary career. Oof, that's 00:25:00.700 --> 00:25:03.660 harsh. It implies exploitation. It does. It perfectly 00:25:03.660 --> 00:25:06.339 captures that criticism that the narrative became 00:25:06.339 --> 00:25:08.559 more important than the patient or the broader 00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.440 issues. Sachs was aware of this, of course. How 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.240 did he respond? He addressed it directly. He 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:16.420 said he hoped his work always showed respect 00:25:16.420 --> 00:25:19.619 and appreciation, not any desire to just expose 00:25:19.619 --> 00:25:22.660 or exhibit for the thrill. He acknowledged it 00:25:22.660 --> 00:25:24.759 was a delicate business. writing about people's 00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:27.980 vulnerabilities. His stated aim was always empathy, 00:25:28.220 --> 00:25:32.609 understanding, illumination, not spectacle. He 00:25:32.609 --> 00:25:34.710 believed you needed the deep narrative to truly 00:25:34.710 --> 00:25:37.490 grasp the condition and the person's life. And 00:25:37.490 --> 00:25:39.910 despite those debates, the institutional recognition 00:25:39.910 --> 00:25:42.269 he received was pretty significant. It suggests 00:25:42.269 --> 00:25:44.690 many people did see the value in his bridging 00:25:44.690 --> 00:25:46.470 role. Oh, absolutely. He got the Lewis Thomas 00:25:46.470 --> 00:25:48.710 Prize we mentioned for science writing. He was 00:25:48.710 --> 00:25:50.950 made a CBE, Commander of the Order of the British 00:25:50.950 --> 00:25:53.650 Empire, in 2008. And that position at Columbia 00:25:53.650 --> 00:25:56.250 University. Right. In 2007, they created the 00:25:56.250 --> 00:25:59.289 Post of Columbia Artists. Specifically for him, 00:25:59.349 --> 00:26:02.769 that title itself speaks volumes, recognizing 00:26:02.769 --> 00:26:05.230 his unique role connecting arts and sciences, 00:26:05.250 --> 00:26:07.410 medicine, and literature. You can't get much 00:26:07.410 --> 00:26:09.450 more establishment recognition than having a 00:26:09.450 --> 00:26:11.970 minor planet named after you. Chuckles. True. 00:26:12.769 --> 00:26:15.769 84928 Oliver Sacks, discovered back in 2003. 00:26:16.230 --> 00:26:18.589 That's quite something. His appeal really was 00:26:18.589 --> 00:26:21.319 astronomical, you could say. And his legacy continues 00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:23.720 to unfold. Even after his death, he set up a 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:25.740 foundation. The Oliver Sacks Foundation. Yeah. 00:26:26.220 --> 00:26:28.279 Dedicated to promoting the understanding of the 00:26:28.279 --> 00:26:30.720 brain through narrative nonfiction, continuing 00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:33.599 his mission. And his personal output was just 00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:36.579 immense. He was famous for being a prolific letter 00:26:36.579 --> 00:26:39.180 writer. Handwritten letters only, right? No email. 00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:41.779 Never used email. And a collection of those letters 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:44.509 just came out in 2024. Gives even more insight 00:26:44.509 --> 00:26:46.670 into his thinking, his connections. And then 00:26:46.670 --> 00:26:49.009 there's the archive. That sounds huge. It is. 00:26:49.109 --> 00:26:51.970 The New York Public Library acquired it in 2024. 00:26:52.369 --> 00:26:55.930 We're talking 35 ,000 letters, thousands of photos, 00:26:56.049 --> 00:26:58.789 manuscripts, notebooks, journals. It's an incredible 00:26:58.789 --> 00:27:01.710 resource. Scholars will be mining that for decades. 00:27:02.049 --> 00:27:03.990 So his work continues through the foundation, 00:27:04.289 --> 00:27:06.980 the archive, and posthumous books, too. Yes, 00:27:06.980 --> 00:27:09.359 like River of Consciousness, in 2017, it was 00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:11.019 a collection of essays he'd already organized 00:27:11.019 --> 00:27:13.599 before he died. His commitment to exploring and 00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:16.140 writing was just relentless, right to the end. 00:27:16.259 --> 00:27:19.319 So when you boil it all down, Sachs' career... 00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:22.559 Really was this unique fusion, wasn't it? Completely. 00:27:22.619 --> 00:27:24.619 You had the clinical rigor. He was a respected 00:27:24.619 --> 00:27:26.819 neurologist, a fellow of the Royal College of 00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:29.980 Physicians. But you fuse that with this incredible 00:27:29.980 --> 00:27:33.019 narrative, empathy, the eye of a naturalist, 00:27:33.059 --> 00:27:35.559 the sensibility of a writer. He basically created 00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:39.039 his own genre. He did. And through it, he showed 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:41.430 us something profound about the brain. That even 00:27:41.430 --> 00:27:43.430 when it's damaged or working differently, it's 00:27:43.430 --> 00:27:46.529 incredibly adaptable. It's always striving, always 00:27:46.529 --> 00:27:48.970 trying to make sense of the world, always plastic. 00:27:49.230 --> 00:27:51.970 He showed us the humanity inside the neurology. 00:27:51.970 --> 00:27:53.890 He captured what it felt like, what it meant 00:27:53.890 --> 00:27:55.970 to be conscious, to be a person facing these 00:27:55.970 --> 00:27:58.630 extraordinary neurological challenges. That farewell 00:27:58.630 --> 00:28:01.190 message he wrote. Above all, I have been a sentient 00:28:01.190 --> 00:28:03.890 being. A thinking animal on this beautiful planet. 00:28:03.930 --> 00:28:06.470 And that in itself has been an enormous privilege 00:28:06.470 --> 00:28:09.079 and adventure. He took his own adventure, his 00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:11.640 own observations, and shared the inner life of 00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:14.160 the mind in a way nobody else really had. A man 00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:17.559 of contradictions, as his obituary noted. Candid, 00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:20.339 yet guarded. Intensely solitary, but also deeply 00:28:20.339 --> 00:28:23.180 connected to his patient's stories. And we've 00:28:23.180 --> 00:28:25.500 seen how his own experiences, the childhood trauma, 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:27.960 the face blindness, the leg injury, weren't just 00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:30.759 background noise. They actively shaped his empathy, 00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:32.839 didn't they? Absolutely. They gave him a unique 00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:35.220 lens. He wasn't just observing difference. He 00:28:35.220 --> 00:28:37.480 understood it from the inside, in a way. Which 00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:39.619 brings us to a final thought for you listening. 00:28:40.039 --> 00:28:42.460 Sachs demonstrated how understanding his own 00:28:42.460 --> 00:28:45.059 quirks, his own neurological landscape, gave 00:28:45.059 --> 00:28:47.759 him profound insight into others. Right. So the 00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:50.599 question becomes, how might embracing your own 00:28:50.599 --> 00:28:53.319 internal landscape, your own unique ways of thinking, 00:28:53.500 --> 00:28:56.180 your strengths, maybe even your perceived weaknesses 00:28:56.180 --> 00:28:59.200 or quirks, how might that actually lead you to 00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:01.960 deeper, more original insights about the world 00:29:01.960 --> 00:29:04.480 around you? Could your own different way of seeing 00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.599 things be a source of unique understanding, just 00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:09.880 as Sachs turned his challenges into a remarkable 00:29:09.880 --> 00:29:12.680 way of illuminating the human condition for all 00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:15.019 of us? It's definitely something to reflect on. 00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:18.339 A provocative thought indeed. Thank you for joining 00:29:18.339 --> 00:29:20.619 us for this deep dive into the rich, complex 00:29:20.619 --> 00:29:22.759 life and work of Oliver Sachs.