About the Author - Bill Hayes on his relationship with Sacks

Bill Hayes on Oliver Sacks

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/26/bill-hayes-insomniac-city-my-life-with-oliver-sacks-new-york

'My life with Oliver Sacks - he was the most unusual person I had ever known'
Bill Hayes

Oliver's periodic table

Bill Hayes' piece about his time with Oliver Sacks is very emotive. Before they entered into a relationship Sacks had claimed to not have had sex for over 30 years due to his extreme shyness that he called 'a disease'.

Sacks was shy but had a childlike enthusiasm and excitement for learning and discussing varying topics with people. He seemed to be incapable of judging people and had absolutely no interest in fame or celebrities as well as being completely clueless about modern technology; no computer, phone. He called Hayes' iPhone the 'little box'.

He clearly enjoyed talking to people such as Bjork when he and Hayes visited her in Iceland. He bonded well with other eccentric people like Bjork and had a charm that people warmed to. He was approachable and kind despite his crippling shyness. He seemed to adore nature and liked just being in quiet, natural surroundings with Hayes or listening to Bach.
'We took long walks in the botanical garden in the Bronx, where he could expatiate on every species of fern. We visited the Museum of Natural History – not for the dinosaurs or special exhibitions but to spend time in the often empty, chapel-like room of gems, minerals, and, especially, the elements – O knew the stories behind the discoveries of every single one.'

Hayes' diary entires describe Sacks as someone who enjoyed insightful, stimulating conversation and a drink but also someone who never stopped wanting to read and write but most of all think.
“I say I love writing, but really it is thinking I love – that rush of thoughts – new connections in the brain being made. And it comes out of the blue.” O smiled. “In such moments: I feel such love of the world, love of thinking…”   

The diary entries about his gradual decline with illness are very sad but also very dignified. He was a thoughtful, intelligent person who valued dignity even in his last moments. He was calm and accepting of his diagnosis.

I got the impression that he had a deep love of nature and the human mind and took great pleasure in what he did wether it be socially or academically.

O: “The most we can do is to write – intelligently, creatively, critically, evocatively – about what it is like living in the world at this time.”

The more I learn about Sacks as a person I find him to be a very decent human being who was clearly unique and also a genius. I'm feeling smug that I chose him as it is much easier to research as much as possible when that person is as interesting and intriguing as him. I will keep reading up on him as well as having a deeper look into his scientific writing.

Oliver Sacks on learning he has terminal cancer - New York Times 2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html?_r=0

Here I depart from Hume. While I have enjoyed loving relationships and friendships and have no real enmities, I cannot say (nor would anyone who knows me say) that I am a man of mild dispositions. On the contrary, I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.

I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends.

I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

About the Author - Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks

I've decided on Oliver Sacks for this project. A few things made it an easy choice once I started to do some research on him. 

My friend strongly recommended him to me a while ago and she got well excited when I mentioned I might use him for the project. So she helped convince me that he is a brilliant writer and all round interesting person.

Neurology
I don't know much at all about how the human brain works so it will be great to learn more about neurology and the left/right hemisphere differences in the brain.

After watching the TED talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOTaXhbqPQ Sacks gave I think there will be a fantastic amount of stories to pick from. Some of the hallucination stories from his patients are fascinating in how bizarre and strange they are. 

Sacks facts from Oliver Sacks interview 1989 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwqu_K0Wj4A
He dropped out of his medical studies to travel across Canada where he worked as a logger and began writing.
Became obsessed with weight lifting and even set a state record in California.
Came to New York to find what he wanted to do with his life.
He began working with patients with neurological diseases across hospitals in New York.
'Where others may find despair, Sacks finds inspiration.'
He takes notes in the botanical gardens to process his thoughts.
"I'm addicted to patients"
"I need these other lives to become part of my own"
"Empathy isn't enough"
"I wish I could be in their shoes"

The impression I get from interviews and his writing is that he is a very compassionate person who talks about the importance of having empathy for the patients rather than 'statistics or lists' and treating them with dignity and how you need to 'get to know and love them, recognize, respect them, as people'(Awakenings).

Authors can have a reputation as being reclusive and hard to get to know but I find there is a warmth with Sack that I can identify with and that will make it much more rewarding long term, as I get to know him more as a person as well as his writing. He is shy but approachable and eager to share his expert knowledge with anyone.

About the Author; Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was an astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist. He made contributions to science academically and lectured at Harvard but is most famous as a science communicator and popularising science for a mass audience with TV series Cosmos and many best selling books.

He is often used in pop culture such as shows like family guy but he was a respected scientist in his own right. 

Brian Cox has stated Sagan as the person who most inspired him and has clearly been heavily influenced by Sagan's methods of communicating with an audience about the interesting mysteries of the cosmos.

There is a famous extract from one of his most popular books Pale Blue Dot which is a profound, thoughtful few paragraphs about the planet earth and humanity's insignificance in the vast universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I

Sagan's philosophical analysis of our technical advances, impact on the environment and our self destructive acts is cutting, humbling yet optimistic. He lays bare all our weaknesses and faults as a species but also puts forward what we can do change our ways and believes ultimately we will succeed barring a natural disaster or nuclear war.  

Pale Blue Dot (1994)

Pale Blue Dot was published not long before Sagan died in 1996. This book was inspired by the famous pale blue dot photograph taken by Voyager as it left the edges of the solar system. The photograph was taken for a non-scientific purpose, instead taken out of curiosity of seeing earth from a huge distance. The resulting photo was a humbling image of earth as a pale blue pixelated dot faintly shining, in line with one of Saturn's rings. This provides an undercurrent theme for the tone of the book. Sagan explores our insignificance and vulnerability in the dark, hostile, lifeless universe and our need to preserve the precious life on earth rather than believing ourselves to be important and immortal as a species.   

The Dragons of Eden (1977)

Sagan looks at the evolution of the human brain and how we can determine intelligence of each species using brain to body mass ratio. Humans and dolphins being the most intelligent. He also calculates how civilised human's existence on a cosmic scale is barely one second before midnight on new years eve if the calendar year was to scale of the age of the universe. 

http://thegutsygibbon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dragons-of-eden-book-review.html

Broca's Brain (1979)

Sagan attacks various nonsense theories that were put forward as scientific ideas. This is an important part of being a credible scientist as pseudo science can be very damaging to the general public's knowledge of basic science. 

New York Times: 'Sagan can write about anything...and seem as if  he learned what he knows while playing in the sandbox'

Carl Sagan was a brilliant science communicator but struggled to win over some of his scientific peers who felt he did not warrant the praise he gained from the public. He was not given tenure at Harvard as it was felt he did not specialise enough in one particular area of science and instead had too broad a range of research subjects. He polarised opinion in the scientific community but also did huge amounts for science in terms of winning public support and interest for science as a whole. He held a strong belief that knowledge was the most powerful tool for mankind and the need to maintain a hunger for knowledge was vital. He had a spooky ability to make some accurate predictions about the future of technological advances and the dangers of isolating the public from science and not using it's benefits for everyone. He predicted that information would be the new currency in the future and manufacturing jobs would be moved away from America and how technology will be in the hands of the few, brings to mind companies like Apple and Google as well as his prediction that people wouldn't be able to trust the authorities with anything and become paranoid and slip into ignorance is very close to the current state of things in the US with Donald Trump's administration and the willingness to ignore facts. https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/yes-the-eerie-carl-sagan-prediction-thats-going-viral-1791502520

SPACE

My girlfriend takes the piss out of my interest in space and all things scientific but I had to research Sagan as he is the closest to nonfiction science writing and I wanted to indulge in my ambitions to create science illustration. However I feel as he is more of a all round brilliant scientist who was best at being thoughtful and philosophical about humanity's future I didn't find he had enough material or writing about the more intense subjects in science that I find the most interesting such as quantum mechanics and new theories that are up to date, modern scientific discussion. For example one of the most significant discoveries about Dark Energy was made two years after Sagan's death.

Sagan is a fascinating person with some truly beautiful thoughtful pieces of writing but I can't see his subject matter keeping me hooked enough. I've watched loads of videos of his musings and they are profound and thought provoking but the whimsical tone might start to grate after a few briefs.