The left and the right hemispheres

"Neither hemisphere is 'more advanced' or 'better' than the other; they are merely suited for different dimensions and stages of processing.  [...] The capacity to move from a 'common eye' or 'vulgar ear' into artistic skill and expertise goes with the move from right to left hemisphere predominance. [...] while musical perception is chiefly a right hemisphere function in predominantly 'naïve' listeners, it becomes a left hemisphere function in professional musicians and 'expert' listeners (who grasp its 'grammar' and rules, and for whom it has become an intricate formal structure.
[...] A similar shift occurs with those who become mathematical or arithmetical 'experts', who become able to see mathematical concepts, or numbers, as part of a vast, well-organized intellectual universe or scheme. This may be equally true of painters and interior designers, who see space, and visual relationships, as no 'common eye' can do."

Oliver Sacks in, Seeing Voices [pag 105, 106]

On the move with Oliver Sacks

 

 

Oliver Sacks in Greenwich Village in 1961, on his new BMW R60 (Photograph: Douglas White)

“I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts”
Oliver Sacks

Because dying matters

[...] I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.
[...] Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.
[...] I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential.
[...] When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
[...] Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

aqui.
Mais sobre.

Inner life: O cérebro independente.

Caminho a passos largos para a surdez. Pergunto-me se irei ser mais um número na lista daqueles, cujos cérebros, numa de saudosismo e autocompensação, produzem autenticas colagens sonoras (nem sempre musicais).
Reflexões. Musicofilia: Oliver Sacks