The strongest passion in humans is not hunger, sex or power, although these are quite strong; the very strongest passion is laziness. The longer I study human beings, including myself, the more I am inclined to agree. Laziness is the strongest passion.” —-Carl Jung
The interesting thing in this article is that we aren’t only one person – we are a series of different personalities – changing over time.
The British philosopher Derek Parfit espoused a severely reductionist view of personal identity in his seminal book, Reasons and Persons: It does not exist, at least not in the way we usually consider it. We humans, Parfit argued, are not a consistent identity moving through time, but a chain of successive selves, each tangentially linked to, and yet distinct from, the previous and subsequent ones. The boy who begins to smoke despite knowing that he may suffer from the habit decades later should not be judged harshly: “This boy does not identify with his future self,” Parfit wrote. “His attitude towards this future self is in some ways like his attitude to other people.”
That’s really interesting… even apart from procrastination (ie, why do something when you can delegate it to your future self – who is sort of a different person, even a stranger). I have to think about the implications of considering my future self as a stranger. To extend the thought, do we think about our past selves as strangers? Should we?
Another thought?
Of course, the way we treat our future self is not necessarily negative: Since we think of our future self as someone else, our own decision making reflects how we treat other people. Where Parfit’s smoking boy endangers the health of his future self with nary a thought, others might act differently. “The thing is, we make sacrifices for people all the time,” says Hershfield. “In relationships, in marriages.” The silver lining of our dissociation from our future self, then, is that it is another reason to practice being good to others. One of them might be you.
Yes, I am a worrier. I worry too much about things I can’t stop – though I usually worry because I know there are things I can do to prepare and/or protect but I can’t really figure out what those thing are or what they should be. As I get old my worrying is getting a lot better though not for good reasons. I worry less because I don’t give a shit anymore.
One thing I have always worried about is the Yellowstone Supervolcano. Over the years I have looked at potential ash depths to see how much would make it to the Dallas area. Not smart – not healthy.
So, according to the linked article, nothing will happen in the next year at least.
Strike up a conversation every day Ask Interesting Questions Follow Your Curiosity Take Yourself on Dates Listen to Good Podcasts Open Yourself Up to Other Perspectives Tap Into Your Unique Passions
Bill Chance 