Few lines from this book which won my mind and heart:
“ We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative- whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives a ‘narrative’, and that this narrative is us, our identities.
If we wish to know about a man, we ask, ‘what is his story- his real inmost story?’ – for each of us is a biography, a story . Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us- through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives- we are each of us unique.
To be ourselves we must have ourselves- possess, if need be re-possess, our life stories. We must ‘recollect’ ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
This narrative needs, perhaps, in the clue to Mr. Thompson’s desperate tale-telling, his verbosity. Deprived on continuity, of a quiet, continuous inner narrative, he is driven to a sort of narrational frenzy- hence his ceaseless tale, his confabulations, his mythomania. Unable to maintain a genuine narrative or continuity, unable to maintain a genuine world, he is driven to the proliferation of pseudo-narratives, in a pseudo- continuity, pseudo-worlds peopled by pseudo-people, phantoms.”
Above four paragraphs are the reasons behind infinite stories floating in the world and everyone holding those views, narratives and stories believes them true.
Oliver Sacks is a physician, Professor of Neurology at NYU School of Medicine and best-selling author of many books, this being one of them.
Four parts and twenty fours chapters, this book explores many aspects of human behavior with scientific explanations and examples which he witnessed as a physician, research scholar and professor.
I am sure you will worth buying and reading. You can buy by the book here The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat