My Luck Has Run Out

"A month ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At eighty-one, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out—a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver."

Your Own Life

Oliver Sacks comes to terms with his death. Nine years after he had surgery to remove a tumor from his eye (ocular melanoma), he informed that he has multiple metastases in his liver. He is face to face with dying and understands at this point he cannot be saved.

Sacks write about what he is going to do, "It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me." Encouraged by the late philosopher, David Hume, Sacks says "I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can." Trying not to waste any of the little time he has left, Sacks writes about how life really is short and that although we waste a lot of time, we should really try and savor all the time we have here on earth. 

"It is the 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." 

He's come to the realization that he has lived a full life, achieved so many things, experienced so much, and understands that there will never be anyone like him, ever. Just like there will only ever be one me and one you in all of existence. That our journey as a human is to embrace our individuality, to follow our path in life, to live, and to finally die. This is a fate of all humans.

Gratitude

"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have givensomething in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privlege and adventure."

Gold To Mercury

Elements have different names that are assigned based on the number of the protons they have while age is assigned to things based on how long they are around. Unlike elements, we are created and then we are destroyed (according to Dalton's Atomic Theory, respectfully). We are created and we are here to try to live our life to the fullest. Sometimes we forget that one day we won't be here anymore and that there will be a time where we will not physically exist.

During Oliver Sacks last years of life, he reminisces about his past and how ever since he learned about the Periodic Table of Elements when he was eleven, he thought of age as elements. At eleven, Sacks would say, "I am Sodium!" At the time of writing, he says "[he] is Gold," and that on Tuesday he "will become Mercury." Sacks then tells the story about a gift he got for his friend, a sturdy bottle of Mercury, on his eightieth birthday. His friend, however, didn't understand the joke until a couple days later when he sent a charming letter to Sacks. Which he joked and said that he takes a little every day to improve his health. 

Nunc dimittis

—

"I have had a full life, and now I am ready to go"

At the age of seventy-nine, Sacks states he is looking forward to being eighty, "at eighty, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age." Sacks father, who lived to the age of ninety-four said before he passed that the best decade of his life was his eighties. Sacks begins to feel what his father felt at his age, "not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective." When we go outside and the weather is beautiful, isn't it just a great time to be alive? You never know what life will behold for you, even when you become Mercury.

Music Player

I picked out these select songs because I feel like these piano instrumentals really bring out the happiness, as well as the inevitable sadness that comes with life. The reason why I stuck with piano instrumentals is because it shows the true innocence of life as well as how simple life really is although it seems extremely complicated. The music compliments the mood and tone of Oliver Sacks last pieces of writing before his death in August 2015.