In the Sept. 24th issue of the New Yorker, Oliver Sacks tells the tale of Clive Wearing. In his forties, Wearing suffered herpes encephalitis and as a result, has a memory of only seconds. Sacks is fascinated by Wearing’s retained musical skills and his love for his wife Deborah. It’s a long article – fascinating as Sacks always is– and at the end of it is this golden nugget:
“As Deborah recently wrote to me, “Clive’s at-homeness in music and in his love for me are where he transcends amnesia and finds continuum—not the linear fusion of moment after moment, nor based on any framework of autobiographical information, but where Clive, and any of us, are finally, where we are who we are.”
