Oliver Sacks on Writing | Oliver Sacks | Big Think
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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This work by Sarah Salway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
This work by Sarah Salway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
3 comments:
I find Oliver Sacks a very interesting writer. He is a good example of something which in this country at least, our education system actively militates against, and that is the person whose work comes about as a result of straddling the boundaries of Art and Science. There is a point where they have more in common with each other than people think.
Likewise, his comments about the importance of the process of writing as an activity fundamental in determining his quality of life. It does not simply serve his literary interests, but is his way of giving form to his Creativity. And so it is with artists' and Designers' sketchbooks, scrapbooks and journals.
I believe this essential need to create is universal and there in all of us to a greater or lesser extent as a vital component in the human condition. In other words, we are pre-programmed to create, it is a biological function whose roots lie in the deepest, most ancient parts of the brain.
As a former secondary school teacher of Art and Design, before retirement through ill health,I and my colleagues actively encouraged students to keep sketchbooks and journals - in the 'true' sense: as organic,'working' documents, resulting in some highly creative individual work. At its best, for some students these books would cease to be 'school' books and become far more personal. Often, it was the children who felt they could not draw, or had 'no talent' who responded to this approach.
For my own part, my feeble attempts at writing were (like Dr Sacks) never planned, but came about after being encouraged to do something with the E Mails I had begun to write after my retirement. At least in my case 'not giving up the day job' isn't an option!
(See http://andydaly.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/dub-cutaneous-injections-aswad-and-the-man-who/ and http://andydaly.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/brain-downs-tools/)
I enjoy your blog tremendously. Where do you find the time?
Andy Daly
Link to blog via OpenID rather than Google/Blogger
Link to blog via OpenID rather than Google/Blogger.
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