LivingontheInside

I had a classmate in college that seemed a little odd. None of us really spoke to him unless we had to work on projects together, and he seemed like a reserved person for the most part.

Sometimes he was late to laugh at a joke, but otherwise we didn’t think he was so different.

Then came the end of semester project where we all had to discuss our detailed plans for the future in front of the class; what sort of careers we dreamed of having, the reason we were at college in the first place.

And when his turn came it changed my life.

He gave us the short and sweet version of his life story. How he was born with something wrong with his amygdala, (If I remember correctly) and because of it he could not feel emotions. He couldn’t process them, only fake them to blend in. He was keenly intelligent, brilliant. With his brain undistracted by emotions, not quite able to relate to the feeling of boredom, he was a very dedicated student in every subject he had time for between meals and sleep.

But his driving force that caused him to aim his entire life at becoming a neuroscientist was the fact that as far back as he could remember, his mother always said “I love you,” to him with a forlorn expression. A look he had realized later in his teens was due to her knowledge that he could never love her back. That every time he said he loved her, he didn’t actually feel it.

So he wanted to cure his condition. Hence his goal to study the human brain.

The single most powerful force in his entire life was a goal to one day tell his mother he loved her, and for her to smile with genuine joy believing it to be true.

I don’t care what anyone says.

The only force that would guide a young man’s life, to be completely centered around bringing his mother a joy she never thought she could have… is love.