He asked himself this question many times. Why bother with this difficult, exhausting work? Was it necessary? In the end he decided it was, for he was not fit for anything else (he 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). All such things were beyond him. Yet he could try gradually to assemble the bits and pieces of his past, compare and arrange them into episodes, create a coherent view of what his experience and desires were. This was still possible. Hence, 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, his one hope of recovering and becoming the man he had been. Perhaps if he developed his ability to think, he could still be useful, make something of his life. Reviving the past was thus a way of trying to ensure a future. That is why he undertook this exhausting labor, spending hours, days, years searching for lost memories.
He also thought it might be useful to others, that by understanding the damage a bullet fragment does to a man (fracturing his memory, obliterating all possibility of a present, past, future), people would appreciate how much they had been given. So, regardless of how difficult it was for him to write, he had every justification to continue.
The point of my writing is to show how I have been, and still am, struggling to recover my memory. It’s an extremely difficult fight. I had no choice but to try and put together a vocabulary by listening to the radio, reading books, talking to people, collecting words, phrases, sentences, and finally writing an account of what I’d tried to say back in 1944. After that strange, awful head wound I couldn’t do anything else—even read a grammar or look at a book on physics.
So I started to write. I got so carried away with this morbid writing I wouldn’t budge out of the house to go for a walk or see a movie. I’d just sit trying to write this story, to dig up memories of my past that had vanished, to recall words and ideas that are as hard for me as ever. For months on end, I’d spend day after day putting together a vocabulary from my scattered memory, collecting my thoughts and writing them down. That’s the only way I’ve managed to write, and I’m still forced to do this.
This work became the most important thing in life to him—his reason for living: to write his story and possibly overcome his illness, pick up his life again, become a man like other men:
By working on that one story of mine every day—even small amounts at a time—I hoped I’d be able to tell people about this illness and overcome it.
I’ve already worked on the story of my illness for three years. Writing about and studying myself is my way of thinking, keeping busy, working at something. It reassures me, so I keep at it. By doing it again and again (I don’t know how many times I’ve rewritten this over the years), my speaking ability has improved. I really do speak better now and can remember words that were scattered into bits and pieces by my head wound. By training myself (through thinking and writing) I’ve gotten to the point where I can carry on a conversation—at least about simple, everyday matters.
This writing is my only way of thinking. If I shut these notebooks, give it up, I’ll be right back in the desert, in that “know-nothing” world of emptiness and amnesia.
Perhaps, I thought, if I describe my illness in more detail and give them a record of what’s happened, the doctors will understand me. And once they understand me and my illness, they’ll certainly be able to cure it. After all, when I was in the hospital I wasn’t really able to remember and tell them what bothered me, so perhaps they still don’t realize I’m suffering, since I can’t give them any of the details.
Another reason for this story was that I wanted to develop and expand my memory, to break through this aphasia. And writing this “Story About My Illness” really has done more than anything to help me develop my memory and use of language, of words and meanings. That’s a fact. I know that my writing may also be a great help to scientists who are studying how the brain and memory work (psychologists, neurologists, and other doctors).
In describing his fate, he left us not just a tragic document but some priceless information. Indeed, who is better able to describe an event than someone who has himself been an eyewitness, participant, and victim? Having been victimized by his illness, he proceeded to investigate it. His description is exceptionally clear and detailed; if we follow him step by step, we may unravel some of the mysteries of the human brain.