{"id":8811,"date":"2026-03-05T00:24:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/?p=8811"},"modified":"2026-03-05T00:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:34:06","slug":"gratitude-oliver-sacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Gratitude, Oliver Sacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-purple-color\">May 24\u201325, 2019<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike the notes on the other OS Sacks books on this site, this was not &#8212; I don&#8217;t think! &#8212; read as part of the essays project with CT. Although I feel confident he has read it. I think that it was this book, my favorite of his works, that awakened my interest in him as an essayist, and let to the long detour that CT and I have taken through his ouvre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What follows are my notes from circa 2019, in a less structured form than has been my later custom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/#1_Mercury\" >1. Mercury<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/#2_My_Own_Life\" >2. My Own Life<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/#3_My_Periodic_Table\" >3. My Periodic Table<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/#4_Sabbath\" >4. Sabbath<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_Mercury\"><\/span>1. Mercury<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-bright-blue-color\">He dreamed of Mercury, shimmering blobs rising and falling: Mercury, element 80, is a symbol of his age.<\/mark><\/em> <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other elements have taken their turn \u2013 Gold for 79 \u2013 signaling his lifelong interest in periodic table of the elements.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He writes of a near death experience at 41, accompanied by thoughts of gratitude, and giving and giving back.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u2026 and of his pleasure in being alive, with positive and negative experiences&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u2026 and of his regrets, and what it might mean to complete a life\u2026<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>His hope for his end: to die in harness, as did Francis Crick.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>His feeling of age not as a shrinking, but <em>\u201c<\/em><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-bright-blue-color\"><em>an enlargement of mental life and perspective<\/em>.\u201d<\/mark><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One has had a long experience of life,<br>not only one\u2019s own life, but others\u2019 too.<br>One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts,<br>&nbsp;revolutions and war, great achievements and deep ambiguities.<br>One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts.<br><br>One is more conscious of transience and beauty.<br>At eighty, one can take the long view<br>and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age.<br>I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like<br>which I could not do when I was forty or sixty.<br><br>I do not think of old age as an ever-grimmer time<br>that one must somehow endure and make the best of,<br>but as a time of leisure and freedom,<br>freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days,<br>free to explore whatever I wish,<br>and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The image that opens the essay is nice, and the connection to the periodic table, which recurs later in the book, gives a particularity to the author. The essay seems to me to wander, which is perhaps fitting given its concluding words about age as a time to expand and explore. But though it wanders, it moves thorough familiar territory: gratitude, what it means to live, and what it means to come to the end of life. The closing thoughts on age as an expansion and a time of freedom are comforting and poetic. <strong><br><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_My_Own_Life\"><\/span>2. My Own Life<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Learns that his cancer has metastasized, and is now face to face with dying.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Foremost in his mind is how to live out remaining days in the deepest, richest way.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Encouraged by David Hume\u2019s reflections \u2013 and his written-in-one-day biography from which he takes his title.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A bit about his vehement disposition, in contrast with Hume\u2019s; but still he shares Hume\u2019s feeling of detachment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Seeing his life from an altitude, and reflecting on how to live out his days:<br>deepening friendships, farewells to loved ones, travel if possible, achieve new understandings and insights.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A feeling that time is pressing, and a detachment from the news and future-oriented issues like climate change.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>His generation its way out, with each death of a contemporary feeling like an ablation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>His predominant feeling is gratitude.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have loved and been loved;<br>I have been given much and I have given something in return;<br>I have read and traveled and thought and written\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Above all I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal,<br>on this beautiful planet,<br>and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is interesting that essay is titled after (and modeled on?) Hume\u2019s essay, and reminds me how in the previous essay he looked towards Francis Crick\u2019s reaction to his own approaching death. We look around us for models, and as Sack looks to Crick and Hume, so, perhaps, will others look towards Sacks. I resonate with Sacks\u2019 feeling of detachment: <em><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-bright-blue-color\">even not facing death, I begin to feel that it is time for those younger than I to set the direction and shape the dialog<\/mark><\/em>. Again, the closing words are comforting and poetic, and capture much of what I value about life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_My_Periodic_Table\"><\/span>3. My Periodic Table<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Notes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>He anticipates the weekly arrival of Nature and Science; he\u2019s had a lifelong fascination with the physical sciences.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He\u2019s sad not to see what the future will bring, <em>vis a vis <\/em>the answers to various scientific questions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The splendor of the mist of stars in the night leads to thoughts of how little time he has left; he says this to his companions, and they say we will wheel you out when you are dying.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He has been touched by the many letters of thanks and appreciation in response to \u201c<em>My Own Life,<\/em>\u201d but they don\u2019t hit as hard as night sky did.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Since childhood, he has dealt with loss by turning to the non-human:<br>now he lays out metals and minerals, \u201clittle emblems of eternity,\u201d on a table beside his chair.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He\u2019s had a surge of energy in the wake of a temporary treatment of his disease;<br>now that has ebbed and he is experiencing bodily decline.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Return to the table of elements:<br>Bisthmus, element 83, an age he does not expect to see; Beryllium, element 4, a reminder of his childhood.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Except for the fascination with minerals, this essay does not speak as much to me. The thought of taking comfort in the non-human is interesting, as are reflections about, what, in general, gives comfort. I\u2019m not sure I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"4_Sabbath\"><\/span>4. Sabbath<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Background on growing up in an Orthodox family with many siblings; the family kept the Sabbath.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What keeping the Sabbath looked like in an orthodox community: Synagogue; walking; visits.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sack\u2019s drift away from Judaism, his coming out as gay, and the consequent familial rejection that reinforces his negative feelings towards religion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>His move to the States, amphetamine addiction, and recovery and career as medical \u2018storyteller\u2019 in New York.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Getting to know his orthodox cousin, a Nobel Laureate, and stories about his cousins commitment to Sabbath.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On a visit to Israel, he experiences the embrace of distant family, now accepting of his homosexuality and his partner \u2013 how attitudes have changed!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The return of his cancer, approaching death, and parallel between restfulness of sabbath and the end of life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The peace of the Sabbath,<br>of a stopped world, a time outside time,<br>was palpable, infused everything\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I like the notion of the Sabbath as the stopping of the world. Though what it does is shift the patterns of daily life away from the mundane and automatic towards activity that is considered and community-oriented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the more unexpected things about retirement is how it has shifted my patterns of activity. Whereas work divided the weeks into \u2018weekdays\u2019 and \u2018weekends,\u2019 and the year into \u2018work\u2019 and \u2018vacation,\u2019 those divisions have now largely vanished. Weekends are signified primarily by the shift in activity around me: of urban life in the large, and in the activities of my friends who still work. Similarly, \u2018vacations,\u2019 which used to be a time to rest and recharge so that I could return to \u2018work\u2019 with new energy and perspectives, have lost much of their significance. There is no longer the stress of work which makes rest a welcome thing; nor is there the prospect of some future work to which any renewed vigor might be applied. Vacations primarily mean a change of scene and rhythm, and at most provide some shifts in perspective on the familiar patterns of life to which I return. To the extent rhythms remain in my personal sphere, they are provided through participation in institutions, in my case the rhythms associated with university courses and my piano lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I do structure my weeks so that appointments, phone calls and the few meetings I participate in are restricted to the week days, the truth is that the weekdays have few obligatory activities, and the primary thing that gives my week structure is my Friday piano lesson. The lesson feels like a landmark, a temporal Transamerica tower, that I am aware of from different vantage points. Although rather than providing me with a sense of orientation as I move past on my way elsewhere, the lesson comes steadily towards me and the orientation has to do with how many days I have to make progress in various pieces by its arrival. (Days matter because shards of what I practice migrate from my frontal cortex to my cerebellum while I sleep, and at the piano in the morning I can discover that my fingers can now fluidly execute what was yesterday a labored production.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">         # # #<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<p>Views: 26<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May 24\u201325, 2019 Unlike the notes on the other OS Sacks books on this site, this was not &#8212; I don&#8217;t think! &#8212; read as part of the essays project with CT. Although I feel confident he has read it. I think that it was this book, my favorite of his works, that awakened my &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2026\/03\/05\/gratitude-oliver-sacks\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Gratitude, Oliver Sacks<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,39,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-notes","category-craft-of-writing","category-oliver-sacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8811"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8829,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8811\/revisions\/8829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}