After finishing the NYT's "A Disease that Allowed Torrents of Creativity" yesterday, I immediately checked out article subject Anne Adams' work, including a book she created with her husband, An ABC Book of Invertebrates. This is the children's book that left-brain and right-brain parents can get behind -- utterly beautiful and gently informative.
Adams died last year of frontotemporal dementia. In her case, the disease allowed the rear temporal right lobe of her brain to surge and grow, tapping deep wells of artistic talent. On an abstract level, the idea of the brain rewiring itself to find and play up new strengths is riveting. On a personal level, it's frightening. My sense of self is derived in some unquantifiable part from the biological happenstance that created my particular brain; who would I be if happenstance again rewrote that terrain?
I found the article fascinating as well -- and, although utterly appalled at her death, some part of me couldn't help but feel, well, a bit envious -- so many diseases just waste the body and mind and spirit away. Adams' illness fired her talents like a crucible -- wow! If one has to go, wouldn't you want to go in a creative fever?
Posted by: The Diving Belle | 2008.04.10 at 06:36