Dr. Oliver Sacks knows how to turn the supernatural, that which is still unexplainable, into something natural, almost quotidian: those cases of blind men, Parkinson's patients, autistic people, strange sick people who perturb our grid-like lives, and who we would list as "catastrophes," as circus freaks, who can take wing beyond the mere biology in order to knock down the stigma and the prejudice of us all, who had already dismissed them out of hand. This great educator, through his humane approach of deep empathy with his ...
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Dr. Oliver Sacks knows how to turn the supernatural, that which is still unexplainable, into something natural, almost quotidian: those cases of blind men, Parkinson's patients, autistic people, strange sick people who perturb our grid-like lives, and who we would list as "catastrophes," as circus freaks, who can take wing beyond the mere biology in order to knock down the stigma and the prejudice of us all, who had already dismissed them out of hand. This great educator, through his humane approach of deep empathy with his patients, manages to turn each dysfunction into an almost merely circumstantial aspect, like the place of our birth or the language we speak.The unavoidable question arises: Isn't it?This collection's first part arose under the influence of his writings, his reflections, his accomplishments; each line fed on those fabulous cases he has treated, which expose our limited understanding, and cause vertigo when we intuit how unfathomable our mind is, how much our logic cannot apprehend."I do not know the origin of tics, nor what they exactly represent. I like to understand them as our subconscious reactions, and precisely because of that the most intimate ones, before situations that escape our control." [The Tic Collector]"I place my face right up to the mirror. I look fixedly into my own eyes. Nothing! I experience absolutely nothing. I remember reading about people who felt some sort of vertigo, unease, and even terror when they would study their own face for too long. " [The Case of the Woman Unable to Recognize Herself in the Mirror]"Gorja doesn't seem to have changed at all. He waits for days with torrential downpours to spend a fortune ordering tons of take-out by phone. His joy is to imagine and then confirm that, sometimes, the delivery drivers are easy prey to dramatic wrecks." [Comics]
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