"If too short, it will be dull. Too long and the impact will be gone."

Almond. No, I am not talking about the seed of a fruit which is frequently known as a type of nut. I am referring to the almonds inside a human brain, which is named amygdala. 

The word amygdala is evolved from the Latin word for almond. The reason for naming this specific part of human brain as amygdala is because of its small almond like structure, as I searched on internet. To briefly mention its responsibility, it controls our emotional progression as well as contributes to our learning and behavioral changes.

The very first time I have heard about amygdala was in my psychology class, that day ma’am discussed about how human emotion is formed and how our brain provides the signal to our body to react appropriately according to the situations. Since then, I had a bit of curiosity about this interesting part of human brain. And recently I read a book which is based on the mental disorder Alexithymia, a person’s inability to identify and express feelings, caused by the lack of development of one’s amygdala. I think book readers might do the right guess about which book I am referring to.

ALMOND! Yes, the novel Almond by Won Pyung Sohn. It was an amazing read, definitely goes to the list of my favorite books. As soon as I finished reading the book, I wanted to write something about it. Okay everyone, SPOILER ALERT!!  The lead character Yunjae was unable to express his feelings since birth. As mentioned in the book, a child is supposed to smile within the 3 days of their birth, but Yunjae didn’t laugh ever since his birth. Neither he understood others’ expression nor he ever expressed himself. According to researches, his amygdala wasn’t developed enough to recognize or feel human feelings as other people usually do. His mom did anything that was possible for her to do for the development of her son’s condition. She brought almonds of various countries for him since almonds are good for brain development. He had tasted varieties of almonds that he innovated a way by which he thought the almond tasted better. He portrayed it as, "If too short, it will be dull. Too long and the impact will be gone." Besides, she started to train him some of the expressions we use in our daily life like, if someone cries what does that mean, if someone smiles how he should react back at him. He was taught where to say thank you and sorry, these helped him coping up with the world but not much since he had no feelings in real. The author mentioned, “People sometimes say how cool it'd be to be fearless, but they don't know what they're talking about. Fear is an instinctive defense mechanism necessary for survival. Not knowing fear doesn't mean that you're brave; it means you're stupid enough to stay standing on the road when a car is charging toward you.” Neither he had any fear nor any sorrow when he saw his grandma and his mom getting stabbed in front of his eyes. Though it’s not his fault he wasn’t able to feel any kind of emotion. He had to face different types of difficulties in his everyday life since his mom was in coma and his grandma died in that incident, he had no one to guide him how to react on which situation. In his hardship of life, a man from his neighborhood who was the owner of a bakery shop helped him to figure out many of the questions that raised in his mind. Days went and when he was in high school, a new boy named Gon came to his school and he didn’t have a good bonding with Yunjae at the first place. Gon was from an abandoned family who been loved in his life on the other hand, Yunjae was the one who never felt any kind of emotion. So, at some point they were able to understand each other’s situation unlike the rest of the world. Gon was the person he considered as his friend. At a point, Gon’s life was at risk and he helped him to get out of it and he was the one who got injured in Gon’s place. And so, he had to be hospitalized. In his high school life, he also met a girl named Dora, who he found interesting and every time he met her, his heartbeat got fastened yet he didn’t know why it happened since he had no idea about the feeling of love.

In the very last part of this story, his mom overcome the coma and when he saw his mom fully conscious and uttered the word mom, his mom burst out in tears and unknowingly he noticed tears on his own cheeks, for the very first time he had tears in his eyes.

“Humans are designed to move on and keep on living, after all”, the author stated.

 

I had no idea about the disorder before reading this book. I think many of us are not aware of this disorder and may not be able to recognize if anyone around us is coping up with it. We often think, it would be great if we could remove all the sorrows of our life, we think it would be amazing to live a fearless life; no fear of death, no panic before exams, we think it would have been easier for us if we were less emotional. However, emotion is what makes us human. Without emotion we would have never felt bad seeing someone is pain, we would have never helped seeing someone in danger, we would have never felt happy either. The human life would have been meaningless without emotion.

People like Yunjae doesn't know it feels after achieving something, how it feels to lose a close person, how it feels to get humiliated, how it feels to get appreciated as well. It must not be that easy as it seems, since people like him are so unaccompanied and are treated in such an inhumanly way.

We should never look down upon someone without knowing what they might go through in life and should learn to be respectful to everyone around us. 

Written by Fariha Islam Moushe