Remembering vs. experiencing self

2021

Thanks to my friend for reminding me of Daniel Kahneman's remembering vs. experiencing self distinction. I tend to overrate the remember self's desires at the expense of the experiencing self.

I liked this article on it: https://www.shortform.com/blog/daniel-kahneman-happiness/. And in particular this quote:

“"Catering only to the remembering self invites unnecessary suffering. Our memories are fallible, being subject to duration neglect and peak-end rule. * The remembering self favors short periods of intense joy over long periods of moderate happiness. * The remembering self avoids long happy periods if it knows a poor ending will come. * In the extreme, the remembering self would endure decades of pain ending in one jubilee right before death, remembering that joyful moment in the last minutes of life."

Bullet point 2 is very pertinent to me. I'm often reluctant to get into very close relationships out of fear of the pain of their inevitable end due to death or simply a parting of ways. And bullet point 3 was a useful thought for me to consider, how a life like that is what one's "remembering self" would prefer, but is actually against one's overall happiness since we also have an "experiencing self.”