He's written of a successful abstract expressionist painter, celebrated for his use of colour, who became colourblind following an accident. He describes a surgeon whose mind and body while in the operating room defy Tourette's syndrome, allowing him to perform delicate procedures without the slightest bodily tic. The stories of all of his patients are, to Sacks, powerful affirmations of human mental capacity and adaptability. It's important for me to communicate these strange case histories as exemplars or parables of the possible. My feeling is that we are built to survive.
People learn ways of surviving or discover or create ways of surviving in almost any circumstances.
I think I just multiply stories of complexity and survival, and hope that someone will make some sense of it.