How do you live in a world that makes no sense at all? How can you exist when every second of your life is an unsolvable puzzle, and the little pieces are you Doing know how to recognize that it cannot come out?
That was the life of Lev Zasetsky, a man who suffered a brain injury during World War II. The 3,000-page diary that Zasetsky kept after his injury became one of the most valuable and insightful texts on the study of the human brain in the history of biological science. Zasetsky suffered from aphasia, a condition that affects a person’s ability to understand and communicate. Zasetsky’s form of aphasia resulted in him being able to write, but unable to read his own writings or even understand everything he had written.
Alexander Luria, one of the Soviet Union’s most talented neuropsychologists, was assigned to care for Zasetsky and discovered that the young soldier “simply could not write and… had suddenly become illiterate.” Luria pinned Zasetsky’s injury to “the second major block of the brain located in the posterior parts of the large cerebral hemispheres.” This part of the brain’s entire job is to “act as a block for receiving, processing, and retaining information that one obtains from the outside world.”
The precise location of the shrapnel wound meant that “a very important function was fulfilled.” [had] seriously disabled: he [could] does not immediately combine his impressions into a coherent whole; his world [became] fragmented.” And that’s how the world existed for Lev Zasetsky: fragmented. But he didn’t give up. His fascinating story and fearless attitude could reshape our modern understanding of psychology, history, language, communication, and the human mind.
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