On Centralizing the Present

 The tendency of the mind to centralize the present is an interesting phenomenon. To be concrete, when I think of my life, as I would when someone would ask me the question "Who are you?", I would think about my present self--my current lifestyle, goals, interests, and ambitions. Sometimes, I wonder whether in answering that question, I would underrepresent my past self, say five years ago, which was the same in many ways as my present self, but also different in important ways.

Five years ago, I had different interests. I used to watch more TV downstairs and be less active. I lived in a less structured way, and had little in the way of a daily routine. But I was also more competitive. And made friends more easily as well. I wanted to be a doctor. Now I'm a CS major.

In the past five years, there are days I can reflect on with pride, for having successfully executed an uncomfortable goal, such as studying for APs in my second year of high school, or reviewing a painful Latin translation for a test.

There were decisions I made that reflected the high degree of competitiveness I had developed, a mindset I adopted that became insensibly and unhealthily judgemental of myself and others. For example, in sophomore year, I became so attracted to the prospect of skipping ahead to the next math class, Multivariable Calculus, that I placed what I think was undue pressure on the school staff to grant me placement in the advanced class. Not only was the decision I made not typically allowed, it reflected what I can now best characterize a sense of arrogance--a feeling that I was inherently and apparently better at math than my peers, and that I should therefore be allowed to skip ahead of them to the next level.

And it wasn't as if I couldn't have learned the topics without being in the course, especially with YouTube and Khanacademy, which I had used extensively before. I think it was the exalted status of being in an advanced math course that I desired, above the mere wish to avoid repeating concepts--a lie with which I deceived myself and the faculty I persuaded. Anyway, I paid the price when I had to repeat Calculus BC, the course I had skipped in high school, during my first quarter at UCLA, a course I wouldn't have had to take had I followed the normal progression of math courses in high school.

My main point I've changed since the person I was 5 years ago. In some ways, such as the striking excitedness I would exude in social settings in contrast to my now more calm and level-headed disposition, I've changed so much that it's difficult to defend the actions of or even sympathize with my past self. Now I wouldn't feel too resentful when remembering the time my kickboxing coach busted me for fooling around and being rowdy before class. I would feel more detached and cringe a bit at my actions. By contrast, I sometimes still feel a poignant sense of humiliation when remembering the time roughly a year ago when I got into trouble for anonymously (or so I thought) writing a comment on a blog on the school website, a comment I would have not written under my own name. But I still cringe at my decision to try to hide my identity, as well as at the substance of that comment.

Anyway, my point is not even that I've improved or declined (though that too is an important discussion when it comes to self-evaluation). In my case, the consequence of having changed, dramatically in some regards, without finding or establishing some close continuity or connection, is that I feel detached from some of my past memories, experiences, and actions. I feel as though I were remembering an experience with an embarrassingly foolish younger brother. The apparent paradox is that despite my feeling of detachment, I am the same person as I was then. I have the same family, live in the same house, and eat the same food. The memories I feel detached from were my own experiences that I experienced, through my own body. The person who I am now could not be were it not for the experiences which I isolate.

I don't know whether this feeling is very common, but suppose temporal separation of the memories from the present, as well as the degree of difference in personality (between the time of the memory and the present), increase the likelihood and degree of this feeling. If, 10 years from now, I were to regard my present self as alien, and not be able to sympathize with my current actions and mistakes, would the value of my present experiences and the learning I take away from them not also be diminished? One thought I heard from Dr. Peterson struck me, that the primary function of memory is to help us learn from our mistakes and improve our ability to make wiser decisions, by enabling us to more accurately predict the consequences of our actions. My question is, if we alienate our past experiences, such that they seem irrelevant to our present self and decision-making, is the value of our past diminished?