Life’s Work: Oliver Sacks An Interview with Oliver Sacks by Burrell

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Life’s Work: Oliver SacksAn Interview with Oliver Sacks

by BurrellOliver Sacks embarked on a career in neurology because,

he says, “the brain both shapes us and is shaped by us—it is who we are.†For several decades he has treated people with all-consuming disorders, such as the inability to create new memories. He has written various books of detailed, empathic case histories, including Awakenings (adapted into a film starring Robin ) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. His latest, The Mind’s Eye, chronicles his patients’ and his own problems with sight.

Are people hardwired to have certain jobs?In

families of musicians, and sometimes mathematicians, I think the genetic component is very strong. The Bach family was so famous for its musicality that musicians in Germany used to be called Bachs. Certain minds may be analytically inclined from the start, and this may draw them toward science. But family influence is important. Nine uncles

on my mother’s side were all chemists or physicists, and I thought I wanted to follow them, until I was about 14. My parents were both physicians, and eventually I followed them. But how much it was destined, I don’t know. There was another part of me which wanted to get

away from it all and just be a writer.If people want to try something completely new in their second act, how can they prepare their brains for the transition?Being

very advanced in age, I’ve been thinking of act three rather than act two. I believe it may just come on one spontaneously—as with, say,

, who was a very good biologist. When he was 50 or 60, he could look with some pride at his 200 or so tightly argued and highly admired scientific articles and think, “These have not expressed me. I am not fulfilled. Life doesn’t just consist of technical articles.†And then suddenly he started writing essays of a completely different sort.What helped him make that shift?I think he just got tired of what he was doing. He’d done enough.So it’s just a matter of sheer will?http://mukulchaudhri.blogspot.com