15 ms·
Trapped in his body for 12 years, a man breaks free (2015)
- zeta0134 6y agoThis is an interesting story, but unfortunately the article is a lengthy advertisement for a larger program that does not appear to be available in text form: > To hear how Martin returned to life, listen to Invisibilia, NPR's newest program. The program debuts this weekend on many public radio stations, and the podcast is available for download at NPR.org and on iTunes. Edit, because this is still floating near the top: It's an older article, and has been released in text transcript form after all: https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man
- yboris 6y agoI think it's available already: https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man
- onion2k 6y agoThe article is a transcription of the first two thirds of the 12 minute long podcast. Just skip to 8 minutes in to hear the rest.
- xattt 6y agoCut that down to 2 minutes by listening the podcast on double speed.
- ghostpepper 6y agoI misread your comment at first and thought you were saying you can listen to a 12-minute podcast in 2 minutes by playing it at double speed. Did the math in my head several times before I realized.
- grugagag 6y agoI'm surprised anyone would 2x the speed on such a podcast. I usually prefer to skim text for quick information gathering but not for a podcast. To me podcasts are about having a certain intimate experience and really don't like doubling up the speed. For instructional videos yeah, doubling up is very productive.
- maneesh 6y agoI watch Netflix and other television speed at 1.3x - 2x, and I enjoy the experience much more than at normal speed. Not everyone experiences information the same!
- grugagag 6y agoDo you watch it to extract info? If so it makes sense. But to get the experience I sync with the original speed and if it’s too boring I skip alotogether rather than ramping up the speed.
- dorkwood 6y agoThis is interesting! What sort of shows are you watching, and why is it important to you that you get through them quickly?
- spicybright 6y agoHow does one set that on netflix?
- Talanes 6y agoDo you ever worry that you're training yourself to find actual human interaction unbearably slow?
- mrmuagi 6y agoI am not that individual, but I listen on 1.5x-2x speed as well for podcasts/audiobooks. I was always a fast reader/listener, and I think it's because I loved listening and reading. Human interaction is kind of slow yeah, but it gives you time to think.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- etskinner 6y agoThe transcription of the full episode appears to be available from a button next to the audio player on the article, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/376084137 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/376084137
- smoyer 6y agoI think the story is told better by Pistorius himself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1IX1AFRZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1IX1AFRZg
- jimmaswell 6y agoThere's also a wikipedia article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Pistorius https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Pistorius
- dmos62 6y agoThat's the most intense and innocent appreciation of language I've witnessed. According to his wiki page, by now he's wheelchair racing.
- nocman 6y agoThank you very much for pointing this out. This video is one of those things you could watch every year for a number of different reasons -- all of them important ones.
- smoyer 6y agoI have a list of inspirational videos that I rewatch periodically - here's another one I watch every year or two: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493750
- 8bitsrule 6y agoA remarkable and somewhat singular voice sharing insights from a long contemplation. Well deserving of long consideration in return. Most concerning is how long it took someone to come along with the capacity to see that there was someone 'in there' - and who could connect him with the help he needed. To some extent all of us are in a similar state. Each of us is far more than what we have been able to do for others. Much of what we are and can be is invisible to most people around us. The reverse is also unquestionably true. Recognizing and internalizing that, we can also appreciate that our efforts - to make it possible for more and more people to express themselves as Michael has done - are very important to very many. Including ourselves.
- tobyhinloopen 6y agoI love NPR’s “visit plain text” option and I wish more news sites would do that
- capableweb 6y agoIt's a very nice feature indeed! Only problem is that it redirects you back to the homepage, and it's been like this since the day I first found out about it. So I guess it's on purpose, to make some fewer people use that feature.
- tobyhinloopen 6y agoWeird, it works fine for me (it redirects me to the article)
- dependenttypes 6y agoIf only it actually worked...
- mulmen 6y agoUnfortunately it doesn't work. You can construct the text URL yourself from the www URL, I explained how to do this in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24475995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24475995
- starpilot 6y ago(2015) This got a lot of attention on release. If it sounds familiar, you probably already read it.
- FactCore 6y agoThanks for that. I was reading it and feeling a really weird "No this did actually happen" deja vu until you pointed out the date.
- merricksb 6y agoIf curious, see HN discussion from the time of publication: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791 From a comment at the top of that thread: Here's a link to the full transcript: http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928124/dark-thoughts http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928124/dark-thoughts and http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-in-man http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-in-man and, There is video on YouTube where he is interviewed, he still can't speak though but other than that he appears fine. Well, maybe not great he is in a wheelchair too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBFntsxK-vc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBFntsxK-vc
- asciimo 6y agoMany people can be great in wheelchairs, too :) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27554754 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27554754
- the_arun 6y agoThis story is so encouraging & human compared to rest of the news we read/hear everyday. Thanks for sharing!
- rebuilder 6y agoI guess I'm a glass-half-full type of person after all, then! This story is horrifying to me. Apparently it's possible to be indefinitely kept in what I can only imagine must be sheer hell, with no way out, and fully aware you're probably looking at decades of suffering. This man lucked out. How many others are supposedly vegetative but actually aware right now? I suppose the odds are it's not a large number, but still. Time to find out what kind of paperwork I need to file to stop this happening to me.
- sulam 6y agoHmm, glass half empty you mean? I mean yes, it sounds absolutely horrible. On the other hand, he recovered, married, has a child and is living "the dream" (independent consultant doing web/etc). He's also probably _really_ good at meditation. :)
- the_arun 6y agoI said this story is encouraging. For all of us who go through daily chores could feel better knowing there is worst that could happen to us and we are lucky to live through with our basic necessities fulfilled. This kind of stories should make us empathetic/(more human) to others knowing what we have.
- abellerose 6y agoI don’t know if I agree with that outlook but I can understand the people that like the it could be worse mentality to keep them going. I don’t think I’m any less empathetic for not having your outlook.
- xenadu02 6y agoEnough of these kinds of incidents are now known that I'd imagine neurologists would be on the lookout for the signs. During this time he'd have had plenty of brain activity as opposed to truly vegetative patients. Perhaps if fMRI had existed back then he wouldn't have suffered for so long?
- codetrotter 6y agoThat podcast episode explains something from the 11:20 minutes mark to 11:45 that I did not get from TFA. Namely, who is this Barney that he hated? In the featured article they only wrote: > But occasionally there were things that elicited thoughts he could not ignore. > Like Barney. > "I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," Martin says. > Since all the world thought Martin was a vegetable, at the special care center where he spent his days he was often in front of the TV watching reruns of the children's cartoon hour after hour, day after day. But in the podcast they use the melody from the Barney & Friends kids TV show and now it makes sense. Before listening to to the podcast, after reading the article I was like "but who is Barney?"
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- phkahler 6y agoBarney is fairly widely hated, even by kids who previously watched it. For me it brought an element of humor to this mans terrible experience when I think - He hated Barney so much he was able to escape a coma-like lock-in just to not have to watch the show!
- chaostheory 6y agoTo understand the full horror of Barney, text alone won't do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VcHbf8Kz0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VcHbf8Kz0c
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoOh. My. God. I am OLD. Hating Barney was like a rite of passage for our generation. He coagulated out of the primordial sludge about the time our kids were getting old enough to want to see a purple dinosaur sing "I Love You". Over and over and over again. I liked the Barney mod for Doom though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsvdMzfFNdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsvdMzfFNdQ
- memling 6y ago> I liked the Barney mod for Doom though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsvdMzfFNdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsvdMzfFNdQ Barney Splat[1] was a door game for BBSs back in the day. [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/barneysplat https://www.mobygames.com/game/barneysplat
- wombatmobile 6y agoI listened to the whole podcast about Martin. His family never gave up on him. He was non-responsive for more than 11 years. For most of that time, he could hear and understand. Because he couldn't communicate, his life was a joyless experience. Sometimes his carers were careless with him, hurting him. He couldn't respond. One nurse abused him. He couldn't respond. After many years, his mother told him she wished he would die. He learned how to disengage from his thoughts. Just go to black. He became good at that. It was joyless. "A very dark place to find yourself because in a sense you are allowing yourself to vanish." After years in this very dark place, one day he decided he'd had enough. He began to re-engage with his thoughts. Over months, he learned to tell the time by tracking the angle of the sun's rays in the room over the day. Still, he couldn't move his body. They'd sit him in front of the TV to watch Barney. He hated Barney. One day he heard Whitney Houston on the radio, singing The Greatest Love of All. When she sang "No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dig-ni-ty" he thought to himself, "Wanna bet?" He embraced darkness and endured his own thoughts, moving through them, gaining self-understanding. Then, after a while, something changed and he could blink his eyes. I don't know how long that took, or what the moment was like when he first made contact again. The podcast doesn't detail that moment. It just skips to when he could squeeze hands. His mother bought him a joystick. It took him a year to learn how to use it. He asked for coffee and forged ahead. Within two years he got a job with the government. A nurse told him she had a problem with her computer. He fixed the computer. Soon, he quit his job and started a web design company. He met a woman over Skype. They hit it off and got married when he was 32 years old. His face hurts from smiling so much.
- agumonkey 6y agoholy shit I'm aching in forms I never knew before add this man to 'patience' in the dictionnary
- forgotmypw17 6y agoMy grandfather was on life support for less than a year, and they were talking about unplugging him. Then he recovered and lived another ~10 years.
- frereubu 6y agoOn a side note, I really like the theory behing NPR's plain text option, but it's only occasionally that it directs me to a plain text version of the actual story. Often, as with this, it redirects me to the homepage. Does anyone know the reason for this? Does the author have to explicitly publish a text-only version?
- roelschroeven 6y agoI don't get that text-only thing either. They give me the choice between ads, cookies, tracking vs text-only; they present it like text-only is the worse option, only for losers, while I very much prefer the text-only version thank you very much. Doesn't look very good maybe, but I don't care and Firefox's reader mode clears that right up. But then they, as you say, the article I was looking for doesn't seem to be there!? Why do they even ask??
- IncRnd 6y agoI have javascript disabled, and the regular page loads immediately for me with all of the story shown.
- kzrdude 6y agoThe only question, how do you have the energy to browse the web without javascript, when every site uses it for something.
- hawski 6y agoI imagine he either enables once in a while using NoScript, or just bails out. I do not block Javascript for the time being, but nowadays I bail out much more often, because most of what I see on the web, including on HN, is trash or sightly higher then that, but still inconsequential. Try sometimes to use links -g and you'll see how web can feel like browsing local resources, if you have a decent connection. Some sites will not work, but it kinda works as quality filter. If only links would support tabbed browsing.
- EricE 6y ago
- Der_Einzige 6y agoYeah, I'm still going to sign a DNR order so that if I'm in this situation, that I can have an escape. It's not worth 12 years of being locked in to your body to have a tiny chance of escape. I am so afraid of a situation like this happening to me.
- billiam 6y agoQuite telling that some people see this as a triumph of humanity and your reaction and some others is to make sure you can you end your life if in a similar situation. Martin of course never had that choice to make. But I think the real point of his story is his message about how important it is to communicate with others, how the depth and content of that communication with others is who we really are. I think a man who was alone with his thoughts for 15 years is very qualified to give us that advice.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThis story would have motivated me to make sure the proper people have the proper documents to ensure my plug gets pulled after a couple days. But I already took care of that.
- tintor 6y agoThis condition could be a great use case for Neural Link. To allow the patient to send text messages and control devices.
- netsharc 6y agoAh, yet another Elon Musk invention. Will it work as well as the SpeceX rockets or cave submarine and the promised level 5 self-driving..
- bpodgursky 6y agoI don't know if you noticed, but the SpaceX rockets work extremely well.
- jacquesm 6y agoBut the cave submarine and the self driving do not. GP forgot to add a question mark.
- ChrisClark 6y agoI sure hope it works as well as SpaceX and the self driving, both are amazing marvels already. And aren't even complete yet!
- stallmanite 6y agoHow are the wildly successful and impressive accomplishments of SpaceX comparable to the cave submarine or nonexistent level5 self-driving? One of these things is not like the others.
- James_Henry 6y agoThat is what the comment is saying: will this work like one of Musk's "successes" or like one of Musk's "failures".
- grishka 6y agoIt feels weird that no one realized they could hook him up to one of those EEG devices that would allow him to control a computer with his brain activity. That way he could have a very narrow, but nevertheless a channel through which to communicate with the outside world.
- duskwuff 6y agoIn 1991 - 1994? The technology might have existed in some cutting-edge research labs, but certainly not in a day care center in South Africa.
- grishka 6y agoSure, not then, but by 2005 that technology must've already been available.
- icebraining 6y agoThey say he wasn't conscious for the first couple of years. So even if they tried at the beginning, they wouldn't have got anything, and then they just assumed he wasn't conscious.
- mikorym 6y agoInteresting that I don't know of this story. For those that want some quick gratification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SbK6oDBeco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SbK6oDBeco. As far as I know, this story is not as well known in South Africa as one would perhaps expect.
- martin1975 6y agoBonafide divine miracle, if you ask me.
- throw_m239339 6y agoJust because we can't explain fully the phenomenon doesn't mean it's "magics". This guy's case needs to be studied in order to try to find out what made him get better and see if the same conditions would be applicable to other patients suffering from the same ills. Our bodies and our minds are resilient in many ways, we need to find how to enable or accelerate that process.
- lixtra 6y agoI don’t know if your name/year accidentally match his. Also it is not unlikely that he has heard of HN as a web developer. But the possibility gives me joy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tijuco2 6y agoImagine the day we get to have head transplant and people will be able to leave their disabled body? (I know, this case is the opposite). An Italian doctor wants to try it, but many others are criticizing the procedure.
- Waterfall 6y agoCan you tell me more please? I think they're thinking of doing that with stem cell body creation
- markkanof 6y agoThat line about the fathers routine really got to me. I find it a constant challenge to do the daily routine with my completely healthy children. This father got up at 5am, did the morning routine, then did the evening routine, and it seemed to imply that he would also wake up every two hours during the night to turn Martin. He did this for years despite being told that he was really just waiting for his son to die. The amount of love and compassion this guy showed for his kid is something I strive for every day with my own children, but not sure I always achieve.
- noir_lord 6y agoThat you worry about it means you are a great parent. I wish my father had put an ounce of thought into whether he was a good father.
- dmos62 6y agoThe world is full of care and kindness: it's about being open to it. When we're disappointed by people close to us, it's important to remember that love is something than originates within, not without.
- epicureanideal 6y agoIs this from http://wisdomofchopra.com/ http://wisdomofchopra.com/? /s But seriously, can you explain what you mean by this?
- Viliam1234 6y agoMy guess would be that if someone doesn't love you even if you wish very much they would, then thinking about that person is just prolonging your suffering. Just stop. There are seven billion other people on this planet, pretty sure many of them are nice. But why would any of those many strangers love specifically you? One possible reason is that people reciprocate love. So your best strategy is to become a loving person yourself. And then, one of the people you meet, will return your feelings. And in the meanwhile, being a loving person already feels better than being focused on your own misery, so this is a bonus. Actually, it would probably be better to simply focus on being a loving person and not worry too much about when people start to return your love. Just make sure you meet many people; and if the strategy doesn't work for a while, change your environment. With so many good people out there, don't waste your time trying to squeeze some love out of the bad ones. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to remain in a bubble with the bad people, because then it seems like the entire universe is bad. (Oh, and if someone says "I may seem like a bad person to you, but trust me that the others are even worse", they are lying; don't argue with them, but go outside and try for yourself.)
- mindcrime 6y agoIs anybody else reminded of the character from the song "One"[1] by Metallica, and the movie/novel "Johnny Got His Gun"[2]? Granted, that was different in that the situation resulted from a traumatic injury and the man lost his limbs. But the idea of being "trapped in your body" - unable to communicate, aware of your own existence, but basically nothing else - seems similar. Darkness imprisoning me All that I see Absolute horror I cannot live I cannot die Trapped in myself Body my holding cell I remember being terrified of this idea the first time I saw the video all those years ago. I guess I still am. I just had no idea - until now - that a situation like this could result from much of anything other than a major traumatic injury. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)
- zerocrates 6y agoAnother fairly well-known account of locked-in syndrome would be The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby (also made into a movie); in his case the precipitating event was a stroke.
- josefresco 6y agoAs a fellow kid of the 90's: Yes.
- V-2 6y agoI also recall a science fiction take on the theme. It was a short story by Stanisław Lem. There's this mad scientist named Decantor, who killed / immortalized his wife by copying her mind onto an indestructible crystal. The consciousness persists and the mind keeps on thinking, and it can't die - it's virtually immortal. That's the extra twist here. So, it's capable of surviving for millions of years, likely outliving all life on the planet etc., but at the same time deprived of all senses and cut off from the external world. Even an escape into insanity is impossible (since, I assume, there's no biochemistry that could get out of balance). The horrified narrator considers it as the worst torment imaginable, whereas Decantor can't see it, as immortality - he points out - has always been humanity's most profound longing.
- gpmcadam 6y agoI clicked this link and was redirect to the 'NPR Choice page'. The options I had were: 1. agree to some lenghty tracking and ad terms, or; 2. decline and visit the plain text site. I'm happy with option 2, so I decline, but I'm redirect to the home page. There's no way to visit this article by substituting 'www.' for 'text.' in the URL, instead you get: > NPR.org Text-Only (go to NPR.org graphical version) > We're sorry, the page you requested is unavailable. Please go to our Contact page for more information. So if you had this problem too, see the archive.org version of this article below: https://web.archive.org/web/20200914175634/https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/09/376084137/trapped-in-his-body-for-12-years-a-man-breaks-free https://web.archive.org/web/20200914175634/https://www.npr.o...
- mulmen 6y agoThe URL scheme on text.npr.org is different from www. Text.npr.org just uses an "sId" to identify stories but not the headline text like the www site. You can find the sId in the www url immediately after the date. https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=376084137 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=376084137 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/09/376084137/trapped-in-his-body-for-12-years-a-man-breaks-free https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/09/3760841...
- jakobmartz3 6y agoWow. Never gave up!
- Waterfall 6y agoThere is evidence that psychedelics put people in higher forms of consciousness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6475593/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6475593/ Here is a few stories about Ambien, a sleeping pill with psychedelic qualities by those who took it. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9215-sleeping-pill-may-rouse-coma-patients/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9215-sleeping-pill-ma... https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-minimally-conscious.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-... They also found music helps those with dementia.
- lmiller1990 6y agoI read the his book "Ghost Boy" many years ago. It's a great read; a heavy and hard one, but I recommend it.
- ravenstine 6y ago> Joan vividly remembers looking at Martin one day and saying: " 'I hope you die.' I know that's a horrible thing to say," she says now. "I just wanted some sort of relief." > And she didn't think her son was there to hear it. > But he was. Daaaaamn.
- pcurve 6y agoTedx talks of him giving talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1IX1AFRZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1IX1AFRZg
- ecnahc515 6y agoA similar story I saw a few months back on reddit is of Jacob Hendel, who also suffered from locked-in syndrome due to Acute Toxic Progressive Stage 4 Leukoencephalopathy. He's got a website www.jhaendelrecovery.com and youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/JacobHaendelRecoveryChannel/ https://www.youtube.com/c/JacobHaendelRecoveryChannel/. It's super inspiring and he regularly provides updates on youtube on his recovery progress.
- h0l0cube 6y agoOver the last decade there's been progress in communicating with people who are in a vegetative state by getting them to think of distinct things like swimming or playing tennis to provide a Yes/No response. https://montilab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2015/11/Naci_etal_2012_BCI_DOC.pdf https://montilab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/... > “Scott, are you in any pain? Do any of your body parts hurt right now? Please imagine playing tennis if the answer is no.” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/05/how-science-found-a-way-to-help-coma-patients-communicate https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/05/how-science-fou...
- hansthehorse 6y agoWhile it's not really comparable to this case I spent months in a coma. My wife tells me she was there 24/7 for the first week then hours after work every day. I'm told my family visited everyday as they had worked out a schedule. Every one them interacted with me or read to me or whatever. I remember nothing of it. I feel it did nothing for my recovery but who can say. I remember only a very long nightmare I couldn't wake from. One bad dream after another. Normally I can wake myself from those types of dreams but this was permanent. Later I had to go to therapy to try to rid myself from those memories or at least learn to live with them. The therapist told me there was no way to tell if I had that experience during coma or during the time the - just short of od doses - drugs were withdrawn. My waking experience was like swimming up to the surface of a clear blue ocean from very deep below. I remember hearing a tiny voice asking me to squeeze a finger and made a very small movement and remember a lot of shouting and stuff. Wife tells me everyone who visited me did the same thing every day but this one day I moved when she went through the ritual. When I became fully awake after all the drugs had worn off I realized I could barely speak and couldn't move my arms or legs. Months of rehab to follow. I still rage at movies and TV where a coma victim wakes and it's like nothing ever happened. This was 10 years ago and as you can see it still effects me deeply.
- sizzle 6y agoThanks for the incredibly detailed account from the other side, I'm so happy to hear you pulled through. My dad had a massive hemorrhagic stroke and I was in your wife's position when he was in medically induced coma on high doses of propofol and fentanyl. I always wondered if he was dreaming when I saw his eye saccades in REM. It's tough to go through this experience and made me a patient person once he came out of coma and had narrowly been given a new lease on life albeit needing intensive rehab with severe cognitive and motor deficits. I wish no one has to go through this experience with a loved one...
- Flowsion 6y agoWow, thank you for sharing. That was really insightful.
- scns 6y agoStories like yours make me extremely grateful for the advancements of science. Please do yourself a favour and enjoy your "second life". Maybe get a copy of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Great-Revolutionary-Treatment-Depression-ebook/dp/B08FRSQHFP/ https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Great-Revolutionary-Treatment...
- SCLeo 6y agoReading this makes me feel really uncomfortable. I can't imagine being him. This is literally nightmare fuel, except it is real. I hope human technology can soon evolve to a point where things like this won't happen.
- aasasd 6y agoWhat's with the ‘a sentence a paragraph’ style, though? It was a BBC thing before, but I think even they didn't put three words in a separate paragraph.
- mcbishop 6y ago> "I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," Martin says. > Since all the world thought Martin was a vegetable, at the special care center where he spent his days he was often in front of the TV watching reruns of the children's cartoon hour after hour, day after day. For a young adult with an intact mind... this sounds like hell on Earth.
- AniseAbyss 6y agoThey don't write stories about the people who don't wake up. Americans prefer sentimentality and inspiration I guess.
- hawski 6y agoAre there more cultures that don't prefer them?
- hugodahl 6y agoThe most poignant and human part of his retelling, was the stranger's smile while he was waiting in the car. That is what made him start moving away from the darkness. It's such a seemingly banal action, but so fundamentally human, in which we acknowledge one-another's humanity, and show appreciation for it and ours. Smile folks. It doesn't cost anything, and it just might be the spark needed to light someone's life.
- tiaa 6y agoThis story hit me hard. I read his book today, its a deeply emotional and worthwhile story. Some stray phrases in the book led me to search some details of South African history that I didn't have a strong grasp on. Somehow the various internet wide analytics decided this meant I should see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guLmA6dWKes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guLmA6dWKes It probably requires some context (/research) to understand the context on this. (I certainly did). But I found the implications of this video utterly fascinating. There are a really quite large number of layers to analyze in this.