We like Elizabeth Gilbert, and wish to take her thoughts a step further - to discuss protective effects of proper nutrition on the brain of the young and the creative. Much self-destructive behavior stems from problems caused by poor nutrition. Video at link
Relevant article - Orthomolecular Nutrition to the Rescue
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Terry Pratchett: On His Alzheimer's
UPDATE: Aug. 9 2009
Pratchett is fighting for the right to die.
Link
Not so fast, Sir Terence: Alzheimer's may not be what your medical experts tell you it is. See
Link
Not so fast, Sir Terence: Alzheimer's may not be what your medical experts tell you it is. See
Harold Foster.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060526175827/http://www.hdfoster.com/Foster_Alzheimers.pdf
From The Times
January 30, 2009
Discworld author Terry Pratchett on Alzheimer's and his best work
The Discworld author is funny, fluent and channelling the anger towards his Alzheimer's disease into some of his best work
Andrew Billen
The Talmud decrees that to save one life is to save the world. If scientific research can save Sir Terry Pratchett from Alzheimer's disease, then it will also save Discworld, the fantastical other Earth that the novelist has chronicled in 36 books. Discworld is a flattish disc that rests on four elephants standing on an enormous turtle - but you probably know that, even if you have never read Pratchett. The idea is such a delightful joke, both on creation myths and the more pompous strains of fantasy fiction, that it resonates. As a young fan interviewed on a two-part BBC documentary that follows Pratchett's first year from diagnosis, says: “How could a great mind like that be lost?” I try the thought out on Pratchett, that for intellectuals, such as Bernard Levin or Iris Murdoch, the disease is particularly cruel. “Yes, isn't that a pile of c***?” he replies. “It is a tragedy for everybody. Or, if it is a tragedy for anyone, then it is tragedy for everyone.”
You need to be careful when talking to Pratchett on this matter. For a start he has a particular strain of Alzheimer's called Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) and its symptoms are different. Second, he does not think it makes him special. Over the new year, Edward Stourton on the Today programme on Radio 4 made the mistake of linking his knighthood with the news of his illness, released on the web 13 months ago, a few months before his 60th birthday. Pratchett retorted that he hoped he was being recognised for more than getting ill. He let Stourton off when he said he was referring to the way he had addressed the condition. Stourton was lucky. I get into trouble for saying that having a film crew accompany him as he investigated his own prognosis must have been a “sacrifice”.
“You see, there you go again. It seemed to me absolutely natural because I had to tell people and I thought, ‘Well why be bashful about it?' It's not as if I'd done something wrong. In too many people's minds Alzheimer's is considered madness. It is a physical disease that affects the brain.” In fact, he will admit that the campaigning - not just the television but a visit to Downing Street, where Gordon Brown personally made him a cup of tea and, what is more, listened, a pledge to give a million dollars in research, appearances at support groups and so on - has cost him “half a book”. This is a sacrifice, for he must keep writing.
“Otherwise I'm just Terry Pratchett, ‘the sufferer'. It's all part of our modern culture. We like people to be sufferers because then we can pity them.” He doesn't then want a movie made of his “battle”, such as that Iris Murdoch film? “No. I think three different researchers wrote to me asking could I help them with work on analysing my style as the illness progresses, and I wrote back, 'What I like about vultures is that they wait until the donkey is dead'. I just couldn't believe that they would try that.”
Link
About his television program on living with Alzheimer's
Link
http://web.archive.org/web/20060526175827/http://www.hdfoster.com/Foster_Alzheimers.pdf
From The Times
January 30, 2009
Discworld author Terry Pratchett on Alzheimer's and his best work
The Discworld author is funny, fluent and channelling the anger towards his Alzheimer's disease into some of his best work
Andrew Billen
The Talmud decrees that to save one life is to save the world. If scientific research can save Sir Terry Pratchett from Alzheimer's disease, then it will also save Discworld, the fantastical other Earth that the novelist has chronicled in 36 books. Discworld is a flattish disc that rests on four elephants standing on an enormous turtle - but you probably know that, even if you have never read Pratchett. The idea is such a delightful joke, both on creation myths and the more pompous strains of fantasy fiction, that it resonates. As a young fan interviewed on a two-part BBC documentary that follows Pratchett's first year from diagnosis, says: “How could a great mind like that be lost?” I try the thought out on Pratchett, that for intellectuals, such as Bernard Levin or Iris Murdoch, the disease is particularly cruel. “Yes, isn't that a pile of c***?” he replies. “It is a tragedy for everybody. Or, if it is a tragedy for anyone, then it is tragedy for everyone.”
You need to be careful when talking to Pratchett on this matter. For a start he has a particular strain of Alzheimer's called Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) and its symptoms are different. Second, he does not think it makes him special. Over the new year, Edward Stourton on the Today programme on Radio 4 made the mistake of linking his knighthood with the news of his illness, released on the web 13 months ago, a few months before his 60th birthday. Pratchett retorted that he hoped he was being recognised for more than getting ill. He let Stourton off when he said he was referring to the way he had addressed the condition. Stourton was lucky. I get into trouble for saying that having a film crew accompany him as he investigated his own prognosis must have been a “sacrifice”.
“You see, there you go again. It seemed to me absolutely natural because I had to tell people and I thought, ‘Well why be bashful about it?' It's not as if I'd done something wrong. In too many people's minds Alzheimer's is considered madness. It is a physical disease that affects the brain.” In fact, he will admit that the campaigning - not just the television but a visit to Downing Street, where Gordon Brown personally made him a cup of tea and, what is more, listened, a pledge to give a million dollars in research, appearances at support groups and so on - has cost him “half a book”. This is a sacrifice, for he must keep writing.
“Otherwise I'm just Terry Pratchett, ‘the sufferer'. It's all part of our modern culture. We like people to be sufferers because then we can pity them.” He doesn't then want a movie made of his “battle”, such as that Iris Murdoch film? “No. I think three different researchers wrote to me asking could I help them with work on analysing my style as the illness progresses, and I wrote back, 'What I like about vultures is that they wait until the donkey is dead'. I just couldn't believe that they would try that.”
Link
About his television program on living with Alzheimer's
Link
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Poetry, No Prozac: Leonard Cohen on Tour
How Leonard Cohen threw out his antidepressants
Antidepressants are now the most commonly prescribed
medication in the United States.
"There ain't no cure for love."
Ain't No Cure For Love
from I'm Your Man
LYRICS
I loved you for a long, long time
I know this love is real
It don't matter how it all went wrong
That don't change the way I feel
And I can't believe that time's
Gonna heal this wound I'm speaking of
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love.
I'm aching for you baby
I can't pretend I'm not
I need to see you naked
In your body and your thought
I've got you like a habit
And I'll never get enough
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love
There ain't no cure for love
There ain't no cure for love
All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky
The holy books are open wide
The doctors working day and night
But they'll never ever find that cure for love
There ain't no drink no drug
(Ah tell them, angels)
There's nothing pure enough to be a cure for love
I see you in the subway and I see you on the bus
I see you lying down with me, I see you waking up
I see your hand, I see your hair
Your bracelets and your brush
And I call to you, I call to you
But I don't call soft enough
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love
I walked into this empty church I had no place else to go
When the sweetest voice I ever heard, whispered to my soul
I don't need to be forgiven for loving you so much
It's written in the scriptures
It's written there in blood
I even heard the angels declare it from above
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love
There ain't no cure for love
There ain't no cure for love
All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky
The holy books are open wide
The doctors working day and night
But they'll never ever find that cure,
That cure for love
Leonard Cohen, Stranger Music
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
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