Who lives, who dies, who tells their stories

We are missing writing the ultimate manual for living by failing to document global tales.

I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget his rare ability.

He could perform “calendar arithmetic,” a remarkable talent to instantly identify the day of the week for any given date, past or future.

He owned a small restaurant in the Red Sea city of Aqaba in Jordan, known locally for serving the best Indian chicken tikka. When I first met him, he was in his seventies, friendly and chatty with intellectual curiosity. He looked like any other average senior Jordanian man: white hair, mustache, a bit of a belly, bald, and a warm smile.

I was visiting Aqaba with family, and while waiting for the famous chicken tikka to be ready, he struck up a conversation with me. At some point, he asked me for my birthdate. When I shared it, he paused for less than thirty seconds before announcing the day of the week I was born.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I just know,” he said with a smile.

My brother-in-law, a resident of Aqaba at the time, overheard our conversation and chimed in. “Oh yeah, everyone here knows about him. He’s famous for this. It’s like he developed some kind of algorithm in his brain. He can figure out any date you give him.

I was astounded. To test his claim, I called my mom and asked her what day of the week I was born. “Thursday,” she said, confirming what the chicken tikka man had told me.

Years later, I asked about him on another visit to Aqaba. “Oh, he passed away,” my brother-in-law said.

I felt sad and eventually moved on, but I never forgot him.

Then, one day, I picked up the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, a collection of case studies exploring the strange and complex ways neurological disorders affect human perception, memory, and identity.

One story in the book stopped me in my tracks. It described two intellectually disabled twin brothers with extraordinary abilities to perform “calendar arithmetic,” much like the chicken tikka man. They could instantly identify the day of the week for any date, past or future, and had an extraordinary way of perceiving numbers.

Their story fascinated me because it mirrored what I had seen firsthand in Aqaba. Unlike the chicken tikka man, however, their story was immortalized in a bestselling book by a world-renowned neurologist.

That’s when it hit me: the chicken tikka man’s incredible ability was known only around the dinner tables of Aqaba. It was never documented in a medical journal or studied by scientists. He lived and died in a small town in a small country in a region often on fire. His extraordinary gift, like so many others, was lost to time.

What might have changed if his story had been documented? How could his life, and the lives of his family, have transformed had his story been immortalized? Would he have been invited to speak, appear in a documentary, or even give a TED talk?

How many stories like his have we lost? How many incredible lives have gone undocumented, their lessons and insights buried with them? How many people, living in forgotten parts of the world, never cross paths with someone like Oliver Sacks, someone who could bring their stories to light?

Photo by Lisa Bernstein

We are missing writing the ultimate manual for living by failing to document these tales.

This realization lit a fire in me. I want to take it upon myself to document these stories, to travel the globe, to dig deep and unearth the tales that need to be told, to capture the untold stories that could serve as blueprints for understanding human potential and the extraordinary diversity of our shared experience.

I want to meet these people, write their stories, and share them with the world. I want to make sure that those who live in less exciting parts of the world have a chance for their unique experience to be broadcast. Something like a collection of multimedia stories from remote corners of the world, each one revealing a hidden genius, a forgotten innovator, or an unsung hero.

This could be a series of essays, a podcast, or even a documentary—capturing the extraordinary within the ordinary and sharing it with the global audience it deserves.

This might be my life’s calling.

Now, who’s ready to join me on this side quest—or better yet, help fund it?