I don't expect anyone to read this in its entirety

As I read The Man With a Shattered World, I was consistently baffled by Zasetsky’s unabated and insurmountable will to survive. I found myself (as I’m sure other readers did) questioning whether, were I in such a situation, would I be just as dedicated to a daily relearning of facts, thoughts, and ideas that once came easily and automatically to me? I found it unfathomable that Zasetsky did not give up and persisted in the mentally and physically excruciating attempts at approximating some conception of normalcy – or functioning. Another, perhaps less expected, dilemma came to mind as well: I began wondering why exactly it is so terrifying to lose one’s memory. Other than the fact that one would not be able to properly serve (or be an integral part of) a functioning society, why else is the notion of losing one’s self so horrifying?

This, however, would come back to the definition of the often amorphous term—which, I’m sure, varies among every individual. The term “self” to a person sharing the perspective of LeDoux, for instance, might connote the agglomeration of synaptic connections within different regions of the brain and how these correspond to the environmental and genetic influences a person is endowed with. To someone with a more philosophical mindset, like Descartes (granted, his theories are centuries old), the word might mean something like “that which lives on after death; that which supersedes the physical.” What, however, would Zasetsky have proffered as a definition? And how would this (or how did this) change with his injury?

Though only speculations can be offered, several instances described both by Luria and Zasetsky give insight into the possible answers he might have provided. As Luria notes during a description of Zasetsky’s “former self” (i.e. when his parieto-occipital regions were intact), “Before he was wounded, words had distinct meanings which readily occurred to him. Each word was part of a vital world to which it was linked by thousands of associations; each aroused a flood of vivid and graphic recollections. To be in command of a word meant he was able to evoke almost any impression of the past, to understand relationships between things, conceive ideas, and be in control of his life. And now all this has been obliterated” (Luria 101). Inherent in this statement is the sense of agency, that the person described here (Zasetsky) experienced a sense of control of his memory, could willfully bring to mind specific notions, thoughts, ideas, and sentences. The description implies a freedom of will, an ability to choose that which to focus on and that which to ignore. This ability was consistent; it was stable, concrete, reliable, and could be counted upon not to fail. Thus it was a strong component of Zasetsky’s self-concept. In general, concepts of oneself (as well as the selves of others) seem to be fairly concrete, consistent, and to a certain degree, predictable...or, at least, this is the goal. Striving towards an identity (I believe) means striving towards a concrete, tangible representation of what you think you are, what you want to be, and what you think you’re capable of. (Of course, this concept is malleable: often identities change with time, or evolve—i.e. I no longer feel the need to die my hair blue and wear black lipstick—but while they are favored or worked towards, they seem to be rather fixed—i.e. I thought I was oh so cool for being a “goth;” strove to solidify that identity in my appearance, attitudes, and tastes; maintained this effort until I…well, challenged the conviction that this was really my identity.) In short, identity confirms (sometimes fictitiously) that you are a self, separate from others, distinct and unique.

So, what happens when this disappears? What if I truly still believed that I was, at my core, supposed to dress in back and listen to metal music all the time (yes, I know this is superficial, but bear with me!) and suddenly, my wardrobe was destroyed, my CDs were smashed, I forgot how to put on eyeliner, and I lost that generally depressed composure that so consistently characterized every photo taken of me at the age of thirteen? Well, I would certainly lose my “self” (or, at least, what I had assumed the self to be). But I would also lose my general purpose for being/existing: my M.O. would dissolve right before my eyes. Hopefully, I would recover – and find another identity (cheerleader…or…A student!), since such an example is of minor and superficial concern. In the case of someone who loses a greater portion of his/her sense of self, however, such reconstruction would not seem as easily accessibly.

Which brings us back to Zasetsky: this man, who “graduated with honors from middle school, completed three years of courses at the Tula Polytechnic Institute, [and] did advanced work in chemistry…” (141), who incorporated the information, the knowledge he had thus far accumulated, into a concrete sense of self, was suddenly robbed of all such information which had constituted his identity. He was constantly aware, as he makes numerous notes of, that the words, images and ideas presented to him had once been accessible to him (at least, when he got to the point of being able to recognize them), but was always plagued by the inability to explicitly define and understand them: “I know a particular word exists, except that it has lost its meaning. I don’t understand it as I did before I was wounded. This means that if I hear the word ‘table’ I can’t figure out what it is right away, what it is related to. I just have a feeling that the word is somewhat familiar, but that’s all” (105).

Zasetsky was never capable of recovering the sense of self he had once possessed, the identity he had perhaps even taken for granted at the time. Such a sense had now been overwritten with feelings of failure, a “sense of just how abnormal I am when I talk to people…that idiotic smile on my face, that silly, nervous laugh…I’ve become a very peculiar sort of person…sickly, but…a kind of newborn creature” (100). Normally, such a concept of self wouldn’t be too encouraging (at least I wouldn’t assume so), and might detract someone from wanting to go on. Zasetsky, however, circumvented the disappointment of such perceptions by endowing himself with a purpose to live, and thus creating a new self. By beginning to write, Zasetsky arguably saved himself from that terrible forfeiting of existence that occurs when individuals succumb to their illnesses, such as some of Sacks’ post-encephalitic patients when their illnesses became incompossible with normal life (i.e. Lucy K’s health being incompossible with the relationship she had with her mother). Though, as Luria admits, “…he was not fit for anything…could not help around the house, got lost when he went for walks, and often failed to understand what he read or heard on the radio…” (83), Zasetsky recreated a purpose to live in writing: “…writing his journal, the story of his life, gave him some reason to live. It was essential in that it was his only link with life…he could be useful, make something…to ensure a future” (84). The (nearly obsessive) consistency with which Zasetsky sat at his desk, agonizing over each word for twenty five years (and over 3,000 pages!) gave him a concreteness that perhaps compensated for the now inconsistent self. In other words, he established a stability and reliability through writing that mirrored that found in a striven-for identity (or self-concept). He navigated around his now unpredictable world by finding something tangible to hold on to. The “world as broken into thousands of separate parts” that “made no sense” to him, and which “he feared…for it lacked stability” (61) was now slightly more manageable, inasmuch as he established his own grasp (originating from his new self) upon it [which goes back to the question in the first paragraph: why is it so terrifying? well, because it’s unmanageable/unpredictable/unstable, and therefore is threatening].

It is no wonder, then, that he was so motivated to never give up. That drive to maintain an identity, to maintain a history of himself, to maintain a reason to live is evident in each sentence he so methodically records.