51 books
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48 voters
“Just because it seems like schizophrenia doesn't mean that it is,' Dr. Najjar told me. 'We have to keep humble and keep our eyes open.”
― Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
― Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
“When I contacted her about my research, Dr. Dalmau's colleague Dr. Rita Balice-Gorodn brought up the old Indian proverb, often used by neuroscientists studying the brain, about six blind men trying to identify an elephant, offering it as a way of understanding how much more we have to learn about the disease.
Each man grabs hold of a different part of the animal and tries to identify the unnamed object. One man touches the tail and says, "rope"; one touches a leg and says, "pillar"; one feels a trunk and says, "tree"; one feels an ear and says, "fan"; one feels the belly and says, "wall"; the last one feels the tusk and is certain it's a "pipe." (The tale has been told so many times that the outcomes differ widely. In a Buddhist iteration, the mean are told they are all correct and rejoice; in another, the men break out in violence when they can't agree.)
Dr. Balice-Gordon has a hopeful interpretation of the analogy: "We're sort of approaching the elephant from the front end and from the back end in the hopes of touching in the middle. We're hoping to paint a detailed enough landscape of the elephant.”
― Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Each man grabs hold of a different part of the animal and tries to identify the unnamed object. One man touches the tail and says, "rope"; one touches a leg and says, "pillar"; one feels a trunk and says, "tree"; one feels an ear and says, "fan"; one feels the belly and says, "wall"; the last one feels the tusk and is certain it's a "pipe." (The tale has been told so many times that the outcomes differ widely. In a Buddhist iteration, the mean are told they are all correct and rejoice; in another, the men break out in violence when they can't agree.)
Dr. Balice-Gordon has a hopeful interpretation of the analogy: "We're sort of approaching the elephant from the front end and from the back end in the hopes of touching in the middle. We're hoping to paint a detailed enough landscape of the elephant.”
― Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
“It's only your body that's suffering, and you are not your body. The rest of you is fine.”
― A House in the Sky
― A House in the Sky
“Kidnappings happened, my parents were told, but they also ended. This was meant as reassurance. So was another point the agents made, offering a first bit of hard comfort in what would turn into months of it: Nigel and I were now commodities. The kidnappers had spent money to catch us and keep us. They'd made an investment, which meant that it was in their best interest to keep us alive. If they killed us, it would be their loss, too.”
― A House in the Sky
― A House in the Sky
Morgan’s 2025 Year in Books
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