The Remembering Self

We had a really nice weekend last week- my son graduated college, it was also Mother's Day and the family was all together celebrating. We were taking a few photos, and it got me thinking about the fact that I have very few pictures on my phone, and how that act of taking photos has changed a lot for me over the years.

It's an interesting dichotomy we face when we are taking pictures. There is, of course, a desire to remember the event being documented, but at the same time if you are busy taking pictures, you generally aren't experiencing the moment in question, or at least not taking it in to its fullest. As I've become more mindful over time, I find myself wanting to take fewer pictures.

There is a model of sorts, care of Kahneman and Tversky , which terms these two impulses the "remembering self" and the "experiencing self". The experiencing self is concerned with moment-to-moment experiences as they occur, and the remembering self focuses on recalling past experiences and constructing memories. It seems that we humans spend an awful lot of time with the remembering self; we seem to be obsessed with documenting every part of our lives and (often) posting them for others to see. We show each other pictures of our vacations, our kids, our pets, and many other things. Sometimes we even choose to do things specifically because they will take nice photos. In a real way, we are building a story about ourselves, and documenting it to support that narrative. That can make things feel safe and bounded, unlike reality which is messy and always changing.

And then there is memory. I hope you know that what you perceive as memory isn't really what happened. Every time a memory is accessed, there is a sort of error that occurs, which needs to be pieced together with new thoughts, emotions, and stories about it that conform to our worldview. Memories are as much a part of our made-up-on-the-fly narrative about ourselves and our lives as anything else and are filled with the same biases that each of us have. This knowledge in and of itself can be liberating - there is a chance what you remember isn't quite right, so why not have more degrees of freedom when thinking what to do now?

Anyway, as I keep pointing out, our lives happen in the now. It's possible to open to this moment and experience something incredibly rich, detailed, and fraught with possibilities. Anything that distracts you from that should be analyzed thoroughly to see if it is worth it. You might try putting your phone or your camera down the next time you feel the urge, and really be present with what is going on. You might be surprised by what happens.

-Scott