I'm Rafael, psychologist. And if I was born in the SAME CONDITIONS as today's CHARACTER, I would probably do THE SAME THINGS as him. Today we are going to reflect on the KING OF THE CHIMERAS —MERUEM.
There are spoilers for the HUNTER X HUNTER anime. Come on! I thought of SEVERAL WAYS to explain my perception of this CHARACTER.
Our view of him is CHANGING over the course of history, as well as HIS VIEW of HUMAN BEINGS is also CHANGING. And then I was thinking: —Look at that! He is someone who appears to already have a FORMED BRAIN, taking the HUMAN SIDE there, of course!
He is a CHIMERA! There have already been several CONSENSUS STUDIES on WHAT AGE OUR BRAIN is kind of FULLY FORMED and the average is around 25 YEARS OF AGE. So for example, AFTER THAT AGE MORE IMPULSIVE decision making is less frequent, as well as the person AFTER THAT AGE tends to suffer LESS INFLUENCE from parents, from close people.
But even with this BRAIN ALREADY FORMED, MERUEM was born a short time ago. And as much as he has a COMPLETE BRAIN STRUCTURE, something is missing in him: LACK REPERTORY, LACK EXPERIENCE. Just think, from his BIRTH, given the COGNITIVE CAPACITIES he has —after all, he learns a game there in hours—, if nothing was done, what he had a notion of RIGHT AND WRONG would be what would determine his FUTURE ACTIONS.
So he basically has a BRAIN of an ADULT, but EXPERIENCES of a CHILD. And intelligence without experience is KNOWLEDGE, and knowledge without experience is IMPRUDENT. Imagine, MERUEM was born there being the TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN, that is, he believes that there is nothing WRONG with being ARROGANT.
So he's going to ELIMINATE whoever it is there, if he feels like it, HE'S GOING TO DO IT because he has POWER and there was no one there to say OTHERWISE. He will not have PARENTS there, for example. Yes ladies and gentlemen, GOOD PARENTS can make CHILDREN SMARTER, CONFIDENT and KIND of others.
And these changes are even seen by NEUROSCIENTISTS in the so-called "FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCES", the RMF, which show these structural and organizational CHANGES in the BRAIN. So with all that, MERUEM is extremely CRUEL. MERUEM considers itself SUPERIOR to all other SPECIES and its CRUELTY begins there.
Right after there at his BIRTH, he begins to KILL in an INDISCRIMINATE way. If something or someone DISTURBS HIM, he simply DESTROYS it just to SATISFY HIS OWN DESIRE, totally ignoring the DESIRE of the other. He KILLS people, human beings, as if they were NOTHING.
Even a CHILD. He does this in a totally INDISTINCT way. And his CHILD EXPERIENCE makes all sense to that.
If a small CHILD, for example, takes a LITTLE BUTTERFLY and KILLS it, if he has not had any other EXPERIENCE, or SOMEONE ALERTING THAT THAT CAUSES BUTTERFLY PAIN, that that is CRUEL, the CHILD may think that that is the RIGHT thing to do. to do. And I saw this precisely in MERUEM.
He simply acts on INSTINCT of his own SPECIES. But come on, he's EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT and then he's LIVING and OBSERVING HUMAN EXPERIENCES and that's where things are CHANGING. As JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL said “A THORN OF EXPERIENCE is worth a whole DESERT of WARNING”.
The MERUEM goes through a DISCOVERY OF EMOTIONS, he begins to see how they are CONTRADICTORY and he does all this for his great OBSERVATION. For TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS, our ANCESTORS lived in very small GROUPS and for them it was FUNDAMENTAL TO CAREFULLY OBSERVE others and the world around them. OBSERVATION was CRUCIAL to our SURVIVAL and luckily no one was there to say at that time “DON'T LOOK AT ANOTHER, IT'S NOT EDUCATED”.
Almost 20 years ago, GAVIN DE BECKER wrote the book “GIFT OF FEAR”, in an effort to ALERT and EDUCATE us about being more OBSERVER AND CONSCIOUS. He encouraged us to LOOK AROUND and listen to this “INNER VOICE” which is really our LIMBIC BRAIN telling us to BE CAREFUL that something is WRONG. The act of OBSERVING is an ABILITY of ours that comes from a long time and that MERUEM will use it in a very EMPHATIC way.
It seems that MERUEM, at the beginning, is totally DEVOTED OF EMPATHY. A group of women CLAIM FOR SURVIVAL and he says "Have you ever SAVED AN ANIMAL because he BEGGED? " An animal doesn't beg not to be killed, precisely because the other WILL NOT Pity, it's like that in nature.
THE MERUEM didn't see sense in SPARE A LIFE he was willing to KILL. In his view, if he was the STRONGEST it would allow him to do ANYTHING. We could say that would be MERUEM GENETICS telling him that, only our PERSONALITY is kind of that a mixture between GENES AND ENVIRONMENT.
Our BIOLOGICAL PREDISPOSITIONS shape HOW WE REACT to our ENVIRONMENT and how it reacts to us. OUR INTERACTIONS with the ENVIRONMENT shape the structural and organizational CHARACTERISTICS of our BRAINS. That is, MERUEM had LITTLE INTERACTION with the environment , he needed to EXPOSE HIMSELF to create a REPERTOIRE and as that was happening, A LOT HAS CHANGED in him.
He was surrounded only by people who AGREED with him. beat him OTHERWISE, that person could DIE quickly — and that's where KOMUGI comes in. His relationship with KOMUGI is one of the most INTERESTING AND EXCITING in ANIME.
She's a SIMPLE little girl, who can't SEE, but she's the BEST GUNGI PLAYER in the world, so good that MERUEM can't beat her and that causes EXTREME CONFLICTS in him. The fact that she was OVERCOMING him allowed him to spend MORE TIME with her and with that he WATCHED her more. There he had a MORE GENUINE INTERACTION with a HUMAN, which made him UNDERSTAND a little bit of the PERCEPTION of these beings, more than that, of the very NATURE OF LIFE.
And at that moment, MERUEM goes through several BREAKS OF EXPECTATIONS, losing several times and he, in some way, even if implicitly, is ADMIRING her, somehow, he is realizing BY THE FEW that he has a HOT HEAD, that he is LOSING CONTROL and not her, she didn't lose her CALM, while he was THE CONTRARY. He tried to MANIPULATE her through EMOTIONS, but it had no effect on her. KOMUGI had that GAME as her LIFE, she was even willing to DIE if she couldn't play it anymore.
She says it was in her ESSENCE. Even when he tries to BET her ARM on the match, to kind of TAKE CONTROL out of her, she doesn't care too much, she even tries to OFFER HER OWN LIFE in case she loses and this makes MERUEM PAY ATTENTION to his own PERCEPTION OF CONTROL. With THAT GIRL he didn't have all THAT CONTROL he had with the OTHERS.
It's similar when a CHILD discovers that THERE ARE LIMITS and that there are things that are OUT OF THEIR CONTROL. With that, with each DEFEAT, he learns more about the experience of BEING A HUMAN BEING, it is in these FAILURES that he learns. When it comes to FAILURE, we can say that the only thing to FEAR is not to LEARN from FAILURE.
He KNEW people who cared a lot about their OWN LIFE, who were SELFISH, but in the case of that LITTLE GIRL it wasn't the same, she wasn't CARING too much. She had OTHER GOALS and an OTHER WORLD VIEW that was beyond his scope of PERCEPTION. Basically there are TWO TYPES OF EMPATHY: there is that EMPATHY that everyone knows of PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE PLACE OF THE OTHER in order to COOPERATE and there is EMPATHY with the function of UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER, but not necessarily COOPERATE.
And this is what is present in MERUEM. The researchers FABRIZIO MAFESSONI and MICHAEL LACHMANN brought in STUDY evidence that our EMPATHY, yes, can only have a MIND READING function there. They argue that HUMAN BEINGS, like OTHER SOCIAL ANIMALS, engage in SPONT NEA MIND READING STRATEGIES, constantly running simulations of what OTHER MINDS might be doing, i.
e. EMPATHY is not just about COOPERATION and is basically this one was MERUEM'S EMPATHY, but he was DEVELOPING the other one, the HARDEST one to have that many say we are LOSING it. Until then it was just that kind of EMPATHY he had, until the moment MERUEM realizes he was CONCERNED ABOUT KOMUGI'S HEALTH and her LIFE.
He finds himself SAVING her from a BIRD. His PRIMITIVE BRAIN asked for one thing and he THOUGHT another way, that is, there was his FIRST ACT OF COMPASSION. In a study in the journal PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE, researchers found that not only ADULTS can learn to be MORE COMPASSIONATE.
Teaching COMPASSION can also result in MORE ALTRRUISTIC BEHAVIOR and actually lead to BRAIN CHANGES. In the study they taught YOUNG PEOPLE to maintain COMPASSIONATE MEDITATION. It is meant to INCREASE FEELINGS OF CARE for people who are SUFFERING.
It worked like this in the study: the participant would have to IMAGINE someone SUFFERING and trying to WISH FOR RELIEF FROM SUFFERING for that person. First with FAMILY MEMBERS, then with NEAR RELATIVES, then with STRANGERS, and lastly with people they DIDN'T LIKE —that's hard, see! And using FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE, before and after the training, RESEARCHERS were able to see how COMPASSION MEDITATION influenced BRAIN ACTIVITY.
We don't know what MERUEM's BRAIN is like, but it seems to work like ours, in other words, his COMPASSIONATE INTERACTION was affecting him, it was affecting his BRAIN STRUCTURE. And what they observed was that those participants MOST LIKELY TO BE MORE ALRUISTIC, after COMPASSION TRAINING had an increase in brain activity in the INFERIOR PARIETAL CORTEX, an area of the brain associated with EMPATHY and UNDERSTANDING of other people. And we see this PERCEPTION of his being EXPOSED in words in the conversation he has in the fight against NETERO that he now realizes that there are LIVES that were VALUABLE to PRESERVE.
Those LIVES for him would be WEAK PEOPLE who couldn't PROTECT THEMSELVES on their own. He kind of wanted to PROTECT THE WORLD from INEQUALITY. And in this fight with NETERO we see THE CLEAR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING EXPERIENCE AND NOT HAVING IT.
As POWERFUL as MERUEM was, he had been born A LITTLE TIME ago. As much as his BRAIN was quite EVOLVED, he still didn't collect the QUANTITY OF EXPERIENCES that NETERO already had. Perhaps the MERUEM's own PERCEPTION of wanting to CHANGE THE WORLD was due to not having EXPERIENCE.
NETERO doesn't even think about it. MERUEM wants to TALK and NETERO realizes that at that moment, in that circumstance, A TALK WOULD NOT RESOLVE ANYTHING. It's such a simple and subtle thing, but TOGASHI put it MASTERLY, of how there would be a HUGE DIFFERENCE between HAVING EXPERIENCE AND NOT HAVING IT.
From EXPERIENCE itself, MERUEM was not seeing the entire scope of the WORLD. His PERCEPTION was LIMITED and, even with LITTLE EXPERIENCE, MERUEM had a GREAT SKILL of UNDERSTANDING the other — just that there are some that he would rip his head off, there's no way around it. He IDENTIFY PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR and used that to his advantage.
For all his POWER, he didn't believe he was RIGHT all the time, that he was RIGHT in everything. And as time passed and he gained experience, the more he was OPEN TO NEW LEARNINGS. And that ties in with the fact that he learns everything VERY FAST.
He goes through what psychologist DAVID KOLB calls EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING. According to him, it is a process by which KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED through TRANSFORMATION, through EXPERIENCE, that is, the concrete EXPERIENCE provides INFORMATION that serve as a basis for REFLECTION and from these REFLECTIONS, we assimilate the INFORMATION and form ABSTRACT CONCEPTS and that was more present in MERUEM because he TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD around him. His CIRCLE OF VISION was SMALL, but he WAS NOT LIMITED and little by little this PERCEPTION of his was opening up, opening the FRONTIERS more until it was NO LONGER AS BEFORE.
Psychologist EGON BRUNSWIK has shown in a study that people often DON'T SEE ANYTHING unless they have some IDEA of what they are LOOKING for. It's just like someone who works with BIRDS: whoever is OUTSIDE, observes a very green FOREST and sees only GREEN LEAVES, while the person who WORKS with it can perceive, even in this GREEN SEA, BIRDS hidden there. It's the same thing in MERUEM, he couldn't see anything else in the HUMAN BEING, and this LITTLE GIRL who played with him had been THE FIRST to make him see things from another angle.
She basically had a POWER that he didn't have, in other words, KOMUGI represented there the VALUE DIVERSITY of an INDIVIDUAL. MERUEM realizes it wasn't just about POWER, PHYSICAL STRENGTH. With that he starts to REALIZE that he was not THAT SPECIAL after all, getting to KNEEL to just get the INFORMATION of where KOMUGI was, for him to see her ONCE AGAIN.
It took him off a PEDESTAL, showing more MERCY, as he did with POUF. That's why his ENDING is SO EXCITING for me and for you too. Even with a LITTLE LIFE TIME, MERUEM managed to UNDERSTAND a little about COMPASSION and about FINDING YOUR OWN WAY.
He didn't have MANY EXPERIENCES. He curiously REALIZED that what MATTERED most to him and what had given MEANING TO his SHORT LIFE was having played SHOGI with KOMUGI, it wasn't WORLD DOMINATION or anything like that or becoming KING. In his LAST MOMENTS, he just wanted to do what had given him the MOST JOY in his SHORT LIFE.
MERUEM had allowed himself to LEARN. After all, OPPORTUNITY comes with FREQUENCY. WHAT FREQUENCY?
It knocks as often as you have an EAR trained to HEAR it, an EYE trained to SEE it, a HAND trained to GRAB it, and a HEAD trained to USE it. Like, subscribe and share. It's just the beginning.
