サックス先生曰く

“Oliver Sacks reveals he has terminal cancer” http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/20/oliver-sacks-reveals-terminal-cancer

オリヴァー・サックス先生*1、自らが末期癌であることを告白。

The scientist and writer Oliver Sacks has said his “luck has run out” after revealing that he has terminal cancer.

Sacks, whose book Awakenings inspired the Oscar-nominated film of the same name, disclosed his illness in an article in the New York Times.

The London-born academic, made a CBE in the 2008 birthday honours, said: “A month ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, 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.”

He said it came after a previous diagnosis nine years ago and he is now “face to face with dying”.

He wrote: “It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.”

レナードの朝 (サックス・コレクション)

レナードの朝 [DVD]

「死の恐怖」を巡って；

He admitted he had some fear about dying, and discussed the sadness of seeing friends and loved ones die before him. “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. This does not mean I am finished with life,” he wrote. “On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more.”

「未来」の喪失；

Sacks said he would no longer watch the evening news, or pay attention to arguments over politics or climate change.

“I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future,” he wrote.

去年11月に日本に帰った時、NHKで放映された「シャルル・ボネ症候群」に関するサックス先生のレクチャーを視た*2。その時、話の９割以上が聴き取れることに吃驚した。米語でそんなに聴き取れることは普通ないのだ。そして、サックス先生が倫敦生まれの英国人であることを忘れていたということに気づいたのだった。

*1:http://www.oliversacks.com/ See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sacks Mentioned in http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091106/1257535198 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20091213/1260686440 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110118/1295293499 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20120124/1327340422 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20140317/1395031114

*2:See http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds?language=ja