Narrator: A young, shy, Oxford-trained doctor pulls up to a group of Hells Angels on his motorcycle. He is an outsider, an Englishman in San Francisco, a world away from the rigid class structures he left behind. Yet, instead of being met with hostility, his audacity and profession earn him immediate acceptance. This man, who could set a state record for squatting 600 pounds and also diagnose a rare neurological disorder, lived a life of profound contradictions. He was a man in constant motion, driven by a relentless curiosity about the physical world and the intricate landscapes of the human mind.

This is the world of Oliver Sacks, and his memoir, On the Move: A Life, reveals the deeply personal journey of the man behind the famous clinical tales. It’s a story of embracing extremes—from the thrill of the open road to the quiet intensity of the laboratory, from the depths of drug addiction to the heights of intellectual discovery—all in a search for what it means to live a full and authentic life.

Narrator: Oliver Sacks’s early life was marked by a powerful longing for movement and a tendency to push boundaries. This desire for freedom was a direct reaction to a feeling of powerlessness he experienced in boarding school, manifesting in a deep fascination with motorcycles. They were not just machines, but symbols of power, control, and escape. His first ride was a near-disaster; he bought a secondhand BSA Bantam with a jammed throttle and faulty brakes, which sent him on an uncontrollable, looping ride around London's Regent's Park. He careened around the park's circular road, hooting and yelling, until the bike finally ran out of gas. This recklessness was a recurring theme, captured by a schoolmaster’s prescient report: "Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far." This trait was also evident in his personal life, particularly in his struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality. When he came out to his parents, his mother’s devastating response—"You are an abomination, I wish you had never been born"—inflicted a deep and lasting wound, reinforcing his sense of being an outsider and fueling his desire to move, to escape, and to forge his own path.

Narrator: Driven by a romanticized vision of America and a feeling of being stifled in post-war England, Sacks left for North America in 1960. His initial plan was to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, but a wise officer sensed his ambivalence and advised him to travel first. This advice set Sacks on a journey of self-discovery across Canada. A pivotal moment came in the Canadian Rockies, where he met an older man, a "Professor," who saw his potential. The Professor encouraged him to abandon his military plans and pursue medicine in the United States, specifically California, a place he described as a meritocracy where "if you’re good, you go up." This encounter solidified Sacks's resolve. After a brief, conscripted stint as a firefighter in British Columbia, he finally arrived in San Francisco. A visit to the towering redwoods of Muir Woods was the final catalyst. Awed by their majesty, he knew he had found his new home, a place of freedom and opportunity far from the constraints of his past.

Narrator: While Sacks was forging a new life in America, a shadow loomed over his family back in England: the tragic illness of his older brother, Michael. From a young age, Michael was a troubled individual, and his struggles with bullying at school likely contributed to the onset of schizophrenia in his teens. The family was devastated, grappling with fear and shame as they tried to manage his psychotic episodes. The story of Michael's first psychosis is harrowing; he developed delusions that he was being targeted by a "sadistic Providence." The treatments of the era, like insulin shock therapy and early tranquilizers like Largactil, offered limited relief and came with severe side effects. Michael described the mental dullness from the medication as feeling like being "softly killed." Sacks carried immense guilt over his brother's condition, feeling he had not been present enough. This painful family experience, however, became a powerful, albeit tragic, catalyst for his career, driving his deep interest in brain-mind disorders and shaping his profound empathy for his patients.

Narrator: In California, Sacks lived a life of dualities. By day, he was a medical intern at Mount Zion Hospital; by night, he was "Wolf," a powerful weightlifter and motorcyclist. He found a home in the raw, physical world of Muscle Beach, where he pushed his body to its limits, eventually setting a California state record by squatting 600 pounds. This physical world was a stark contrast to his intellectual pursuits, yet both were essential to his identity. This duality was also reflected in his friendship with the poet Thom Gunn. Sacks deeply admired Gunn's work, which explored themes of motion and identity that resonated with his own life. Gunn became a mentor, and their friendship provided an intellectual anchor. Sacks felt he was two different people—the doctor and the biker—a tension he explored through his writing and his life, constantly navigating the space between the cerebral and the visceral.

Narrator: The freedom Sacks found in America also had a dark side. Following a painful, unrequited love affair, he descended into a heavy amphetamine addiction that lasted for years. He described the experience as being like the rats in James Olds's experiments, compulsively seeking stimulation while neglecting basic needs. His drug use led to periods of psychosis and instability. In one terrifying incident, he experienced delirium tremens after withdrawing from a sedative, hallucinating that his coffee was turning purple and that fellow bus passengers had insect-like eyes. He was saved by the quick thinking of a friend, who recognized the symptoms. This period of his life was also marked by a tumultuous, drug-fueled love affair that ended in tragedy. The turning point came when he realized he could not survive without help. He began psychoanalysis with Dr. Leonard Shengold, a relationship that would last for nearly fifty years. Sacks credited analysis, along with good friends and the satisfaction of his work, with saving his life and helping him address the deep-seated issues that fueled his addiction.

Narrator: Sacks’s career took a definitive turn when he began working at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx and encountered a group of patients who were survivors of the encephalitis lethargica pandemic from the 1920s. These patients were frozen, locked in parkinsonian or catatonic states for decades, yet their minds remained intact. Inspired by new research, Sacks administered the drug L-dopa, which resulted in a miraculous, almost biblical, "awakening." Patients who had been motionless for years began to move, speak, and reconnect with the world. However, the initial euphoria was followed by a host of complex side effects. This experience taught Sacks a profound lesson. He realized that treating a symptom was not enough; he had to understand the whole person. One patient, whose weekly migraines were cured by medication, returned complaining of boredom and then suffered a severe asthma attack, a condition his migraines had seemingly replaced. Sacks understood then that he had to look beyond the ailment to the psychological and emotional needs of the individual. This holistic, humanistic approach became the cornerstone of his medical practice and the central theme of his book Awakenings.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Oliver Sacks's On the Move is the profound value of a life lived with fearless curiosity and deep empathy. Sacks refused to be confined by a single identity. He was a physician, a writer, a weightlifter, a motorcyclist, a scientist, and a humanist. He demonstrated that the greatest insights come from bridging disparate worlds—connecting the objective, scientific understanding of the brain with the subjective, narrative experience of the person living with it.

His life challenges us to look beyond labels and diagnoses, both in others and in ourselves. It asks us to consider how our own experiences, our movements, our passions, and our pains, shape the unique individuals we become. Sacks’s journey was one of constant motion, not just across continents, but across the vast and often mysterious territory of the human condition.