On the experience and the story of the experience, wanting just a little more time, and assuming things will go according to plan
March 28, 2019
Dear Eva,
I begin this letter with a bit of trepidation because I’m in that strange state where thoughts are swirling all about, and I feel like if I just had a bit more thinking time, I might be able to connect more of the dots. I am forcing myself to stop and write anyway because I’m trying to reject my tendency to look at everything as a puzzle to be solved. Put another way, I guess I’m trying to get more comfortable with having something to say before every point is fully formed, every idea fully baked. So, please bear with me on this meandering ride!
I have been dwelling on your words from last week about the mountains of artifacts we build, whether we realize it or not. I am remembering how a few years back, my dad handed me a box full of my stories, drawings, and worksheets from third grade. (Where are the boxes from every other grade?) I took it because the alternative was him throwing it out, and you are right that the one exception to my “save nothing” mentality is when it comes to this sort of paraphernalia. But once I got it home, I realized I had adopted a burden. Now, I must either spend a good chunk of time sorting through the stack to try to find a diamond or two in the rough, or make the decision to toss those unexamined memories into the landfill. Or, a third option (the one I have chosen to-date) — slide the box onto a shelf in a closet we rarely use and let it wait.
The thought that I might not have had the chance to make sense of my own mountain of artifacts/experiences/memories before I die is actually one of my greatest fears. Maybe this is me again indulging my impulse to see everything as a puzzle to be solved, but I get so much meaning in my life by trying to connect the dots, find a thread, unearth some insight. A dear friend of mine since the ripe age of 12 has teased me since we were young about my need/desire to “sum it up” after almost anything I do — a vacation, a fun night out. I relish the process of looking back and crafting a story about what I experienced.
Awhile back, I heard an interview with the psychologist/economist Daniel Kahneman where he talked about the difference between what he called the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self” and how the two concepts demonstrate different ways of measuring wellbeing. The experiencing self is focused on happiness along the way, while the remembering self looks for happiness with the story we construct as we look back on our lives. Kahneman said he discovered through his research that what people want is more connected with our remembering selves. In other words, the story matters more to people than the experience along the way, which was the opposite of what we expected to find. I find this fascinating, and it completely resonates with me. We all want to find ways to capture moments, to somehow box them up so we can carry them with us. We want our lives to be more than a train of ephemeral experiences.
It makes me think about how much memory is tied to our ability to construct a narrative about an experience. Whether we like it or not, our brains are not computers that retrieve perfect snapshots of past events. In fact, it’s alarming to learn just how far from that we really are. I have read enough about human memory over the years to know that even what we think we remember might very well be something someone told us that just got folded into our long-term memory over time, probably because it tied in nicely to the story or framework we have in our minds to understand that time or event or concept. It can all be a little mind-bending if you go too far down the road — if we can’t know what memories are real (mine, yours, or anyone’s), is there really even a real version of the past to be known? When we look back on our lives, are we just constructing a tale, and if so, what is a human life? ACK!
Here is where I am going to make a bit of a leap: this human inclination to focus on the overarching narrative, the final impact, the ultimate outcome — is it why we tend to undervalue being and doing along the way? Whatever the domain, it seems to me we are always looking out across the horizon to the output, whether it is wanting to find a job that generates some tangible improvement out in the world or, ahem, wanting to deliberately design a mountain of artifacts to leave our children when we die. But maybe the way we work, the way we parent, the way we interact with others is a better place to fix our gaze? Because, as you so aptly pointed out, we are building mountains along the way, whether we realize it or not.
Until next week!
Your friend,
Sarah
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Dear Sarah,
I’m starting this letter to you on the first day of a short vacation in Los Angeles and Long Beach, here for a good friend’s wedding. I’m excited for her wedding and I’m excited to be on a vacation! It’s been since the holidays that I took some time off, and it’s been a long, full stretch, three busy months full of… thinking, looking, planning, reflecting, deciding, choosing, deciding how to choose, deciding where to focus, where to be. Living, working, writing, doing. We left Minneapolis last night after a busy day eking out a few deadlines and then I slept for two or three hours on the plane, just enjoying not needing to do anything. A knee or a foot belonging to the traveler behind me occasionally pointed its way into my back, at first distracting and then just there. I woke when the airline attendants were one row ahead of me, hoping to guzzle a cup of water and fall back asleep immediately, but then the time between the row ahead and my own row was eternal, filled with rustlings back and forth as the attendants appeared to be running out of things people wanted at just this time, flashlights bobbing along on our evening flight, catching me in my one open eye as I tried to maintain the spirit of my sleep state while being awake enough to request my snack and hydration allotment.
I slept and we had some turbulence and I thought for the first time on this trip about the Boeing Max 8 jets that had gone down, and felt a sadness for those people who hadn’t known when they boarded those jets that they wouldn’t arrive. Then I wondered about their homes, readied for travel, to which they would not return. I thought about our apartment waiting, stacks of papers and books recently ruffled. I wondered who would go through it all if we weren’t returning. “Going through it all” an incorrect description, as a first action would likely simply be to pack things away, to empty our space. Perhaps my husband’s parents would do it? We’re on the cusp of having our own home, will in fact have it by next week’s letter, assuming all goes according to plan. All you can do, to some extent, is assume things will go according to plan!
If my letter is feeling a bit hollow this week I think it’s because my head feels a little hollow, emptied from some continuous squeezing over the past few weeks and months, a wringing-out, and now I’m looking forward to absorbing anew again, soaking up new words and ideas while I sleep and wander sunlit streets. I’m going to savor this quieter time that my body tells me it needs. There are trees with green leaves here in March, and sun shining on the leaves, and open windows with warm breezes, and new books nearby from one of my favorite west-coast bookstores, Skylight Books. I’m an empty bowl catching and holding the light, a blank canvas. Or perhaps a colorful canvas painted fresh with a solid white coat, on top of layers that would reappear if you scratched away at the paint a bit. We’ve reached the halfway point in our year of letters and the layers are thick beneath each week’s fresh white page!
Until next week,
Your friend,
Eva