Very sad, but beautiful. The following passage especially stuck with me:
"Researchers Gilbert, Quiodbach and Wilson coined a term called the “end of history illusion,” which describes people’s tendency to look back on the last ten or twenty years of their life and concede that they’ve changed a great deal. Yet when they’re asked to project how much they’ll change in the next decade, they tend to believe they’ll change much less, if at all, as if all their life was leading up to this moment, in which they’ve achieved peak selfhood.
"The illusion protects us…from realizing how transient our preferences and values are which might lead us to doubt every decision and generate anxiety.
"Sounds like the researchers read Derek Parfit. I’m currently experiencing whatever the opposite of the “end of history illusion” is. Let’s call it: “The beginning of potentially infinite unknowable and yet inevitable futures reality.” Okay, that’s kind of a mouthful. I’m not good at pithy marketing slogans. Knowledge of Jake’s impending death brings with it the certainty that my life is about to undergo tremendous, nonconsensual upheaval, inevitably changing my preferences and values, though I don’t know any details except that I’ll change in likely vast and unexpected ways. Without the comforting illusion of stasis, what can I do to assuage the anxiety caused by reality? That’s what the videos are for."
I've used this observation when designing surveys. Ask people "How well do you know this code on a scale from 1 to 7?" and people reasonably experienced with the code usually go something like 5 or 6.
If you instead ask "Think back at how much you have learned about this code in the past two years, then try to imagine how much you will learn in the next two years. How well do you know this code today, on a scale from 1 to 7?" and the answer ends up in a much more realistic 2–5 range.
>as if all their life was leading up to this moment, in which they’ve achieved peak selfhood.
This is literally true. Absent of a serious mind practice, our memories are built upon the sands of rationalization. Looking back is not a reliving, it's more like a realization that changes happen. Looking forward? We are notoriously poor at guessing our future mindsets, especially charting a course to happiness.
Aversion leads us towards suffering, the dissonance between what we think the world should be vs what it is. The same goes for desire.
Fortunately, we are adaptable, almost infinitely malleable, in the present moment, although our ego makes us resist this ... pliability.
I used to think in terms of future me and past me also, until I drew a line in the sands of my rationalizations, and focused on the present moment. Future me, his joys and sorrows, his problems and their solutions, are above my pay grade, because he is as far from me as the edge of spacetime.
There are two ways to help him: Live in the present moment, so he has memories of the wonder of incarnation, and cultivate mental and physical suppleness, so his options remain open.
I would say to the article writer... revel with thy beloved as you observe the wonder of the present moment. You are not responsible for all the moments that make up a life.
The perception of the past is different from the perception of the present or the future. Probably it has something to do with lived experiences as compressed information versus the guesswork of the unknown future.
I’d wager it’s a protective mechanism, honed by evolution.
The sense of self is important to maintaining a coherent handle on reality, and to building social bonds - if you see yourself as an ephemeral phenomena - as you are - then it makes both matters considerably harder, and harms your chances of survival.
For example, people like to talk about “forever”, when the reality is always anything but - yet they earnestly mean and believe it in the moment as to accept that this too is transient is too painful, and leads to an avoidance of commitment due to the understanding that this is not forever.
We have to keep our blinkers on, lest we get spooked by the passage of time and the fleeting phenomenon that is a human life.
"Researchers Gilbert, Quiodbach and Wilson coined a term called the “end of history illusion,” which describes people’s tendency to look back on the last ten or twenty years of their life and concede that they’ve changed a great deal. Yet when they’re asked to project how much they’ll change in the next decade, they tend to believe they’ll change much less, if at all, as if all their life was leading up to this moment, in which they’ve achieved peak selfhood.
"The illusion protects us…from realizing how transient our preferences and values are which might lead us to doubt every decision and generate anxiety.
"Sounds like the researchers read Derek Parfit. I’m currently experiencing whatever the opposite of the “end of history illusion” is. Let’s call it: “The beginning of potentially infinite unknowable and yet inevitable futures reality.” Okay, that’s kind of a mouthful. I’m not good at pithy marketing slogans. Knowledge of Jake’s impending death brings with it the certainty that my life is about to undergo tremendous, nonconsensual upheaval, inevitably changing my preferences and values, though I don’t know any details except that I’ll change in likely vast and unexpected ways. Without the comforting illusion of stasis, what can I do to assuage the anxiety caused by reality? That’s what the videos are for."