Oliver Sacks on learning he has terminal cancer
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Having been spared from most terminal illnesses, it was surprising that such an unknown and fast working illness exsited. I knew people could get sick and die, but I always imagined it would be something more ... well known, like cancer. Or perhaps a stroke or heart attack.
That we still have illnesses that we know so little about is surprising. What makes ALS so special?
The typical HN reader, by contrast, finds many things and almost everything and anything (as PG might say) interesting. [1]
"If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "
This is not to say that Nobel Prize winners aren't curious of course they are. But somehow I doubt they are all over the place. I find so many things interesting it's hard for me to stay focused some times with the distractions of what is available at your fingertips.
That kind of discussion (and much worse) often occurs at the breakfast table on many farms without anyone ever batting an eye.
For example "hey, do you know what kind of animal that foot on the front steps is from? There's a blood trail behind it but the cats aren't very interested."
That said I don't think your one example proves my theory wrong simply because I didn't say that someone couldn't have other interests what I believe I was trying to say is that they aren't "all over the place". The question really is "how many pet topics" do they have I guess. I would just think that that type of brain has to be more focused.
I've also noticed this with Physicians as well (anecdote of course). I've told them different things and they tend to react as if "wow who would know that or think of that" type of stuff. Because my brain (and I'm not even saying this is an advantage) tends to be all over the place in what I find interesting. So maybe it's a matter of degree not an absolute that can be measured.
My point isn't that a Nobel Prize winner would be interested in "physics and society" or baseball or gardening or all three but they would not have a version of ADD (let's call it that for lack of a better diagnosis [1]) which caused them to continually fork on all sorts of things that just satisfied someone's curiosity so to speak. (I also noted in another comment that I found this as well in Physicians who I have known.)
[1] I don't have ADD but sometimes I wonder if there is a version of intellectual ADD.
The xkcd comic describes it as nerd sniping. http://xkcd.com/356/
I also suspect that reaching a science-Nobel-worthy breakthrough requires not just more years but more-focused work. Feynman may simply have been an exception, but he might also represent something that was possible then but has become less possible with each passing year.
FYP.
Seriously though, I expect you're true that most Nobel winners are highly focused. But I expect so are many (not most) regular readers of HN.
There are probably on the order of a thousand living Nobel Prize winners in the world, or one in seven million or so. In developed countries, where most of HN's readership would come from, the concentration should be higher. My understanding is that HN's regular usership is in the 6 figures, so most likely no Nobel Prize winners there. Not sure how many users have ever registered to HN though. Perhaps there is an HN account belonging to a Prize winner...
It was my impression that the things the Nobel prize is awarded (at least the more famous ones) are one's that were discovered when the recipient wasn't that old, just that the prize is awarded a considerable time after the discovery. After all, the discovery has to prove its importance and stand the test of time.
Also, and it's pure speculation — if I were a Nobel prize laureate, I'd be able to discuss professionally interesting topics with more or less whomever I'd like, live, or in private or group correspondence, instead of a public forum.
It depends on the field, there's some analyses floating around about that. But the question wasn't, are there future Nobelists reading HN...
Possible that readers now could be Nobel winners in the future?
If you include members of institutions that have won Nobel prizes (for instance the Nobel Peace Prize), then yes. If you mean one of the 860 individuals, I don't know, but I guess not.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/11/becky_liddicoat.htm...
Having not read the book and the viewpoint it presents I do feel like there's also a bit of responsibility - I hesitate to use "blame" or "fault" - on the patient or patient's family for keeping them alive on machines and treatment that cost way too much. Perhaps the establishment is an enabler in that sense but what would they be if they didn't respect the wishes of the dying?
I thought it was a pretty worthwhile read - maybe you will too.
Excerpt:
"The hospital lawyer mentioned during orientation that it never fails that the family members who live in the area and have spent lots of time with their mother/father/grandparent over the past few years are willing to let them go, but someone from 2000 miles away flies in at the last second and makes ostentatious demands that EVERYTHING POSSIBLE must be done for the patient.
Your doctors will nod their heads and tell your family they respect their wishes. It will be a lie. Oh, sure, they will carry out the family’s wishes, in terms of continuing to provide the care. But respect? [...]"
I have many relatives and friends in medicine. They will let you end your life the way you want to (for the most part) but you have to be firm about what you want. Doctors don't like telling people they're dying because it is a hard conversation to have. And most people, even those who are aware of the statistics, like to cling to the hope that they could be different.
In fact, when my wife gave it to me, I wasn't even interested in end of life issues - who wants to read about death in the middle of winter? But I was immediately sucked in and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I also hadn't fully grasped the condition of growing old, itself. No one wants to die, but growing old and losing your independence is a disease all to its own, described in vivid detail in the book.
(I also appreciate that the author was so honest about mentioning taking antibiotics before drinking water from the Ganges [and still getting sick!]).
PBS Frontline (which consistently produces awesome journalism) recently did a documentary based on this book:
Beautiful.
Beautiful, indeed.
You're right about it depending on the person though. There is just a lot of misconception about this particular cancer, which is why I commented about it.
Not that I would consider myself a terrible person before reading it, but it made me aware of wrong ideas I had because I never gave them much thought because I did not need to think about them.
Basically the hearing equivalent of white or male privilege. Which kind of opened up the thoughts about other privileges I might have been unaware of.
Great advice for everyone. We are all dying. The magnitude of our vectors may be different, but the direction is always the same.
His writing then, as now, leaps off the page and dances with your mind. Sadly, we will soon lose any possible new writing, and joyously he leaves a lifetime of work as a legacy.
Every few pages I would stop reading, stare into space and contemplate the unusual perspective that he has elucidated. Not many books have such an effect.
If you haven't read The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, please add it to the top of your list.
Also you mentioned your children being young. You may want to record videos for their various birthdays and other life events in case you are no longer alive. I know I will do this when/if I have any children.
What you say does have merit though - I would make it very clear that they would be under no obligation to "reopen the wounds", as it were.
I think it's better to do what one of my best friends (inadvertently) did when they died young - leave a good legacy of mementos for their loved ones. I, for my part, have a collection of musical recordings we made together that I can pull out when I feel like it. It's incredibly emotionally difficult to listen to (especially the parts where the tape was running between songs) but it helps at times. His girlfriend of the time has a lot of his writings/journals she can read to remember his thoughts on life or incidents that happened.
If you know ahead of time, record some memoirs and thoughts. Perhaps build something for them. Give a general message to your loved ones that you had a happy life, etc - whatever seems suitable for the situation and people involved.
...but the idea of recording "A message for my daughter on her 6th birthday from beyond the grave" is incredibly macabre to me and I personally would not want that.
There's much risk involved as well for the tiny little "cuteness" of the fact that the videos were recorded for specific life events. I for one wouldn't want to listen to a deceased parent go on about how proud they were I found a husband on my wedding day to my new wife for example. Or have to spend my whole life staring at a tape marked "for your wedding" and never watching it.
Expanding on this, I'm transgender, and I really wouldn't want to be repeatedly deadnamed on my birthday.
I am about half the age of Oliver Sacks. In the past year I've gone to two funerals for people younger than I am. It's a very poignant reminder of your own mortality when people your age or younger pass away.
He is a neurologist, I am not intending to challenge, just curious and I know there are people here that know much more than I do.
Is an "ocular melanoma" any tumor discovered in the eye? Or is it mutated eye tissue that was subsequently discovered in his liver? Which would indeed be pretty definitive.
I do appreciate your help.
A primary tumor which metastasizes elsewhere in the body has characteristics of the primary tumor, including genetic markers, which is what allows a pathologist to determine a likely origin.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/06/christopher-hitchens-...
http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/how-doctors-die...
Translation: The bonds of friendship are broken, friends, relatives and wive have become cold in love, or few, the cords of love are loosened. Consider the matter well. What profit is there in the attached state? Oh, it is come, the wail of distress, as when a ship founders!
See: http://www.tamilvu.org/library/l2800/html/l2800ind.htm for original text.
This quote sticks out to me, I feel everyone acts, by and large, like this towards these issues (or most issues) regardless of age or health. Probably my pessimistic view of the world, very interesting to read from him.
I think it's hard to separate that intrinsic fact from his stoicism on the subject, impressive though it is. I'm sure it's not easy at any age to face your impending demise, but knowing you've led a pretty long and very successful life perhaps makes it an easier pill to swallow. And, to be a little cynical, we're reading this in a column in The Gray Lady - perhaps he's terrified on the inside but putting on a brave face for the public, either to keep up appearances or to be a source of inspiration for others.
Seems like this would be a good day to re-watch "Awakenings"...
Once you get over 40 you realize that your best hope is to work with what you have (that and your children).
You are not going to learn a new skill sufficiently well to be called master in it.
Sorry, if you start medical school at 40 you are not going to be performing brain surgery at 50.
If you did no writing from 18 until 40 you are not going to suddenly master writing.
Counterexamples welcome.
Whenever, I find someone who did something exceptional at a later life, I find someone who actually laid a solid foundation in his/her teen years.
"I want more life father"
Would this conatain any (most likerly rare) couter-example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_bloomer ?
I would also like to believe that there are some things mature adults have more to bring to the table when mastering something, such as a language, story telling, musical instrument... above all, regardless of whether you truely master something or not, you need to believe that you can - and whilst your comment may be true, it may also take away someones opportunity to believe they can.
A good wakeup call nonetheless.
- Vincent Van Gogh: Never painted anything until he was 27
- Dave McClure: Angel investor, who did not invest in anything until he was 40
- Fauja Singh: Marathonist, who though marathons were 26km until he was 89(!)
- Joseph Conrad: Successful writer at 39, he learned English in his twenties.
- Stallone: If you discount soft porn star roles, he started acting in his mid twenties (ok, I concede this one, Stallone is not the ultimate actor :-P )
Naturally, these are anecdotal. But you should reconsider your hypothesis, and test for sample deviation. Naturally, most people will stick to what they are good at. Only a fraction will go out of their comfort zone. You must account for this bias.
If your hypothesis is that most people won't master anything new later in life, you are probably correct. If your hypothesis is that, out of those people who try to master something new later in life, most won't succeed, I believe you are wrong. You are falling prey to a wrong sample selection.
Out of those people who have put out the time, around me I see very good success rates. For a decent experiment, check out Ben Larcombe's table tennis expert in a year experiment: http://www.experttabletennis.com/expert-in-a-year/
While he did actually fail his goal, a look at his end of year videos makes me label him as having mastered the art of table tennis as much as a random child would do under training (i.e. age played no role in the result).
Appreciate the responses with actual counterexamples:
- Van Gogh: was drawing as a child and continued to draw upon starting to paint. This is the solid foundation that I mentioned my OP. This is even closer than a shogi 9-dan becoming a chess master at 30.
- Dave McClure: hit lottery(even if you argue it was skill, it has nothing to do with my hypothesis) with Paypal, after that he has bought a lot (500+) of lottery tickets. Nothing wrong with that but I do not see mastery (ala Buffett) VC is a field where it is hard to measure mastery. I suppose one could take 10 year risk adjusted returns as some measure. Again, you can start doing anything at any age, but do not expect any great results.
- Fauja Singh: "As a young man, Fauja was an avid amateur runner, but he gave it up at the time of the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition." His records ar 90+ are fantastic for a 90 year old and probably 70-80 year olds but no more than that.
- Joseph Conrad , writers in general are a tricky to evaluate as most of us have had "some" writing in teenage years. Surely, Conrad wrote in Polish and French in his teen years.
One of my favorite writers Raymond Chandler did not really become a writer until age of 44, so does he disprove my hypothesis? If you look at his bio, he must have written/dictated quite a bit as an oil executive sober or not. Even more importantly he was a reporter for the Daily Express and the Bristol Western Gazette newspapers in his 20s.
- Stallone: nothing unusual in his career, he might have started acting a few years later than most aspiring Hollywood hopefuls. His success with Rocky does not really dis/prove his mastery of acting. He is decent at his craft.
- Ben Larcombe's table tennis experiment: his subject was his friend 24 year old Sam Priestley. Again this falls within my 25 year old rule. Besides that the experiment failed!
Actually I agree with most of the conclusions that Ben Larcombe reached: http://www.experttabletennis.com/possible-master-table-tenni...
However again, age is a harsh mistress and past 40 the decline in your learning ability becomes noticable.
We all need our delusions and the "I can do anything if only I set my mind to it" is quite a common one.
If you do not understand the bias I have presented, central point in my argument that you sidestepped, at least understand this: You can choose to believe you can do anything, or you can choose not to. There's a chance of error in each choice. The loss in the error case, for each option, clearly favours choosing the optimist option. Even if all your steps forward are followed by backward steps, at least you are dancing Cha Cha, not moping your way down to a sad grave.
It's true that most people who accomplish big things do so when they are young, but that seems to mostly be a reflection on the fact that people who are driven to do big things have generally the same drive when they are young. People who don't have that drive when younger don't typically discover it at middle age.
Someone in their 40s may have a time-consuming job and a family to support, which precludes ditching the time-consuming job in favor of putting in long hours to master something. Maybe they can only spare an hour or two a week, and maybe they're so exhausted from work that every now and then they can't even do that.
Older adults may be more risk-averse, but that doesn't mean they're incapable of mastering something, just that they're less likely to choose to do so.
"You don't have a family to go home to, so of course you won't object to working until 9pm every day."
"There are a gazillion fresh-out-of-college people with your exact skillset I can hire to replace you in a heartbeat, and you don't yet have the professional reputation to easily find another job."
"You don't have a nest egg built up yet, so if you quit on me or I fire you, enjoy defaulting on your lease and couch surfing until you find something else."
I am about to finish my MSc and move onto my PhD, I just turned 35