[Xmca-l] Re: Oliver Sacks

[Greg Thompson]

Speaking of creativity, I just heard a radiolab episode that talks about
how Sacks dealt with writer's block for his first book. He told himself
that he would kill himself (literally) if he didn't finish the book within
a week.
Here is a link to the audio:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/117294-me-myself-and-muse/

(btw, I'm not proposing this as a solution for anyone, although it seemed
to work for him...)

Sadly,
greg



On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 5:33 PM, David Preiss <preiss.xmca@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> I am deeply saddened by the death of Oliver Sacks. I never had the
> opportunity to interact with him but by his books and texts and even learnt
> of his portrait by R. Williams in Awakenings before even knowing it was
> about him. I have used that movie in my teaching many times to inspire my
> students not only about creativity in science but also to have them
> thinking about the relationship between brain and experience. When I taught
> Intro Psych I used his books as a complement to the boring but unavoidable
> handbook and catalogue of facts.  It was thanks to Mike that I learnt of
> the Luria-Sacks connection. He was for me, as his humble reader, an
> expression of an unlike marriage, that of the literary and the scientific
> thanks to the template of narrative. He made me see the world in a way I
> would have been uncapable to grasp without the help of his ethical and
> beautiful prose.
> I will miss him in the same way I miss a poet whose writing marked me not
> only cognitively but also emotionally. Thanks, Mr. Sacks, for your legacy
> to us, your readers. David
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson