On My Mind

What We Can Learn From The Life of Oliver Sacks

In 1966, Oliver Sacks hit rock bottom. He held a medical degree from the University of Oxford and had completed his residency at UCLA. He had published research papers in scientific journals and was working in a laboratory at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

But, as the renowned author and neurologist wrote in his autobiography, On the Move, “I struggled to give up drugs…my research was going nowhere and I was realizing that it would never get anywhere, that I did not have what it took to be a research scientist.”

It’s hard to imagine now that Sacks, who published 14 books and wrote for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books (among many other publications) before his death last August, ever felt such doubt. He gained notoriety for his narrative case studies of people with neurological disorders ranging from autism and schizophrenia to visual agnosia (the inability to recognize people or things) and achromatopsia (complete color blindness). One of his most famous books, Awakenings, documented how patients who survived encephalitis lethargica (also known as sleepy sickness) emerged from their catatonic states and re-entered their lives. The book became a movie starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

In the midst of his struggles, Sacks began his second attempt at therapy, — “knowing that I would not survive without help.” By October of 1966, he had moved from the laboratory to clinical work, and in his descriptions of that transition, we see a glimmer of what would catapult Sacks to literary and scientific fame.

“I found my patients fascinating,” he wrote, “and I cared for them. I started to taste my own clinical and therapeutic powers.”

Such honesty permeates his memoir, which was published just months before his death. The public radio program Science Friday recently selected On the Move for its winter book club, and will be discussing it on today’s episode.

At 33, Sacks found himself on the brink of oblivion. Life had taken him from London to San Francisco by way of Canada, then to southern California and on to New York.

The episode promises to feature multiple perspectives on Sacks’ life and work, but for me, the most fascinating part of On the Move was being asked to imagine a visionary like Sacks living on the edge of addiction and catastrophic self-doubt. At 33, Sacks found himself on the brink of oblivion. Life had taken him from London to San Francisco by way of Canada, then to southern California and on to New York. He had logged more than 100,000 miles on his motorcycle, set a California state weightlifting record, and succumbed to the temptation of amphetamines. Forget his career; his ability to survive was in question.

What brought him back from — and kept him from returning to — the edge? Sacks credits his twice-weekly sessions with his analyst, which continued for the rest of his life. “Indeed I think it saved my life many times over…[W]ith analysis, good friends, the satisfactions of clinical work and writing, and above all, luck, I have, against all expectations, made it past eighty,” he wrote.

Reading that Sacks himself didn’t find his niche of working with patients until his early thirties and didn’t publish his first book until his late thirties reminded me that life is not a ladder to be methodically climbed, but a trail to be uncovered.

This humility and deep appreciation for life makes Sacks’ book a comforting, engrossing read. While I have not battled the demons of addiction as Sacks did, I have at times felt lost and confused. My low point coincided with college graduation, as I came to terms with the fact that there would be no more syllabi detailing what I was expected to accomplish by when. I wanted a job where I could write, but I could no longer envision myself working as a full-time journalist, a dream I’d clutched since the age of 10.

Reading that Sacks himself didn’t find his niche of working with patients until his early thirties and didn’t publish his first book until his late thirties reminded me that life is not a ladder to be methodically climbed, but a trail to be uncovered. I’m nearly seven years removed from that trepidatious undergraduate, and while I now have a much clearer sense of what I enjoy doing (research and writing about the role of technology in our lives) and a life goal (to write a book), I still fall into patterns of wondering what, exactly, will my career trajectory look like?

Only by virtue of writing from the twilight of his life could Sacks illustrate how his self-doubt evolved into a self-awareness, an understanding and acceptance of who he was. A man who, in 1966 believed another scientist, the Soviet neuropsychologist A.R. Luria. “has already seen, said, written, and thought anything I can ever say, or write, or think,” would, decades later, befriend and help advance the work of Nobel Prize-winning biologists Francis Crick and Gerald Edelman.

Sacks, having tried and failed to build a research career decades earlier, had instead found his passion in working with patients. Nevertheless, Sacks retained his curiosity and wonder for how the world worked. In 1988, Sacks dined with Edelman at a conference on memory, where they discussed Edelman’s work on “the first biological theory of individuality and autonomy.”

“When I walked back to my hotel after dinner with Gerry that evening, I found myself in sort of a rapture.” Sacks wrote. “I thought, ‘Thank God I have lived to hear this theory.’”

Sacks’ zest for life — the theories behind it, the moments that comprise it, and the connections that make it worth living — serves as a testament that true joy emerges from embracing the journey, not knowing the destination.

Priya Kumar is a research analyst for the Ranking Digital Rights Project at New America.