Dangerously well’— what an irony is this: it expresses precisely the doubleness, the paradox, of feeling ‘too well
Interpretation
This quote highlights the paradox of experiencing excessive wellness or happiness leading to unexpected challenges.
Oliver Sacks points out the irony in the phrase 'dangerously well', suggesting that feeling excessively good can carry its own risks. This illustrates a deeper truth about human experience, where joy or health can be met with suspicion or unease, as it disrupts the usual balance of life. The idea of paradox underscores the complexity of our emotions and wellbeing.
In practice
In a discussion about the complexities of mental health during a workshop.
There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. 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.
In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases they're not.
Dr. Kertesz mentioned to me a case known to him of a farmer who had developed prosopagnosia and in consequence could no longer distinguish (the faces of) his cows, and of another such patient, an attendant in a Natural History Museum, who mistook his own reflection for the diorama of an ape
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more - it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.
We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination.
I rejoice when I meet gifted young people... I feel the future is in good hands.
Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel. Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.'
The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
You've gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine. Taste this. It won't make you wild. It's fire. Give up, if you don't understand by this time that your living is firewood.
It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm.
Moderation in all things - including moderation.
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