I’ve a confession to make.
In a current essay, I advised that the query: “What would you like?” is a key to understanding your favorites, your self, and your decisions.
What I didn’t point out is that “What would you like?” is a trick query.
Can you see the trick?
The trick half is “you.”
As I identified then, the solutions to the query are deeply contextual. If it’s requested at a restaurant, the reply is one factor, in a job interview, one other reply fully.
Effectively…in fact! I need one thing to eat at a restaurant and I wish to land the job within the interview. Duh!
What we don’t typically take into consideration is that the “you” being addressed by these two questions are literally not the identical particular person.
We’re used to considering of ourselves as a unified self, a constant presence on the earth. “Regardless of the place you go, there you’re,” the saying goes.
However, “you” is a extremely dynamic set of ideas, emotions, needs, ambitions, moods, behaviors and histories. Not solely are “you” not the identical particular person as you have been 5 years in the past, you’re not the identical as you have been 5 days in the past.
Don’t consider me?
What’s it like to return and have a look at photographs or movies of your self from 5 years in the past? Are “you” the identical particular person because the particular person within the photographs? Effectively, sure and no. Generally, comparisons with the best way we have been are cringeworthy. That cringe “current you” saying that “previous you” is now not somebody that “current you” identifies with. “Current you” could now not need the issues that “previous you” needed…typically desperately! (How may I’ve worn that hideous shirt??)
All of us acknowledge this. That’s what makes the phrase, “issues change” such a truism. It’s simply that we don’t take it critically sufficient. We normally assume we’re talking metaphorically after we say “issues change.” We’re not. The actual fact is, issues actually change on a regular basis. A Beanie Child “current you” discovered ultimately weekend’s native flea market just isn’t the identical object because it was when “previous you” purchased one within the 90s. As poet Muriel Rukeyser put it: “the universe is fabricated from tales, not of atoms.” It’s not the identical object as a result of “you” (and your ongoing story) have modified. (It is a clue about nostalgia, which we’ll take up one other time.)
My grad faculty mentor used to say, “a very powerful query about any conduct is ‘when/when not’?” She meant, after we do one thing and after we don’t tells us lots concerning the conduct and ourselves. When are you chatty and cheerful? When not? When fascinated by what “previous you” and “current you” would possibly/won’t need, we may modify the query to “what modified/didn’t change” to make these issues extra/much less fascinating?
Whereas “current you’s” need for Beanie Infants may need modified, your desire for breakfast cereal won’t. “Previous you” and “current you” nonetheless love Froot Loops! However, “current you” won’t publish selfies of you consuming them on IG! “Current you” won’t need too many individuals to know concerning the Froot Loops half! Why?
Some components of ourselves are extra socially and contextually influenced than different components. Philosophers have used the phrases “I” and “me” to indicate totally different components of myself. Whereas “me” is also known as a perform of my social context and the best way individuals understand me, “I” is the best way my self has taken up present social norms and customs. I is who I’m once I really feel I’m most “being myself.”
That implies that the reply to “what would you like?” isn’t just a perform of when/the place it’s requested, it’s additionally affected by who’s asking. Take into consideration that breakfast cereal query: possibly you’d say “Froot Loops” in case your associate or a superb buddy requested, however “granola” if it’s posed by another person. “Previous you” won’t have had an issue with consuming multi-colored sugar bomb breakfasts, however “current you” needs to be extra cautious about revealing this information! Put one other method, “I” like sugar, however “me” eats wholesome.
What does all this inform us? It says that our preferences, our favourite issues, are a swirling pool of time, place, and social components. More often than not we don’t hassle fascinated by how we’re affected by these components, but when we do cease and have a look at them, we’re prone to uncover some fascinating insights into how “you” are much more complicated than even you may need imagined.
Tom Guarriello is a psychologist, advisor, and founding college member of the Masters in Branding program at New York’s Faculty of Visible Arts. He’s spent over a decade educating psychology-based programs like The Which means of Branded Objects, in addition to main Honors and Thesis tasks. He’s spearheaded two podcasts, BrandBox and RoboPsych, the accompanying podcast for his eponymous web site on the psychology of human-robot interplay. This essay was initially posted on Guarriello’s Substack, My Favourite Issues.
Header photograph by Dominique Godbout.
