Gratitude
"In July 2013, Oliver Sacks turned eighty and wrote [a]... piece in The New York Times about the prospect of old age and the freedom he envisioned for himself in binding together the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime. Eighteen months later, he was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer--which he announced publically in another piece in The New York Times. Gratitude is Sacks's meditation on why life [continued] to enthrall him even as he [faced] the all-too-close presence of his own death, and how to live out the months that [remained] in the richest and deepest way possible"
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What Hacker News says
- "Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn."
- Kafka on the Shore, Murakami
Under immensely troubling times - not as bad as war or famine, but much worse than a startup or relationship failure - these books kept me going:
- The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday - Mastery by Robert Greene - Courage Under Fire by James B Stockdale - Gratitude by Oliver Sacks - Being Mortal by Atul Gawande - Ah I've only recently discovered Oliver Sacks and have just picked up his Letters and Gratitude [1, 2] from the local library!
Marginalian also has a great exploration of his letters as well [3]:
> I think “the meaning of life” is something we have to formulate for ourselves, we have to determine what has meaning for us… It clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love.
[1] https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-books/letters
[2] https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-books/gratitude
[3] https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/11/08/oliver-sacks-lette...
- It's mentioned at the end of the article.
> Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, was the author of many books, including “Musicophilia,” “Gratitude,” and “The River of Consciousness.” A final collection of his essays, “Everything in Its Place,” will be published in April.
