I’ve recently been bouncing around the audiobook version of “Thinking, Fast & Slow”, and it’s been great so far with tons of interesting, counterintuitive facts about the way our minds work.

The main theme of the book? Our minds basically have two separate ways (or systems) of thinking.

• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. (Aka thinking fast.)
• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. (Aka thinking slow.)

One great chapter I just stumbled into is this one: “The Two Selves”.

I’ve found this to be very interesting, and Daniel Kahneman argues that we have two selfs:

1. The experiencing self
2. The remembering self

...and our entire life can heavily depend on our understanding of this fact.

The Experiencing Self

This is our moment to moment experience of everything.

Are you vibing right now? Yes? Then your experiencing self would be doing good. 👍🏼

But are you only happy because you just snorted 3 lines of coke to get your mind off a break up? Well then, maybe your other “self” won't be too happy about that...

The Remembering Self

The remembering self is the part of our mind that tracks and remembers our life experiences. Our remembering self is what determines the light we shine on any given experience.

→ I think of it as the conceptual framing we put OVER any given experience.

Use a vacation as an example: Your remembering self may look back on your trip to Mexico as the best week all year—with beautiful pictures to look back on and luxurious hotels—but when you were on the beach, your experiencing self was actually kinda pissed about the sun beaming into your eyes, and the fact you somehow left your f**king shades at the hotel.