Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory. (transcript)

TED talks are usually informative and fun to burn 10-20 minutes on and learn something new, but I’ve probably watched/read this one multiple times now – it’s really affected me and how the concept can be applied to certain things I’ve been interested in. Without paraphrasing too much from the video, as I strongly suggest taking some time to watch, Daniel Kahneman tells us that we all live two lives – one for our experiencing self, and one for our remembering self. The experiencing self lives life every day, while the remembering self decides which experiences are worthy enough to be remembered. Most are not. And when making life decisions, or just every day decisions even, our remembering self uses its memory to dictate which direction an experience will go – Daniel calls the future anticipated memories. “And basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn’t need.”

I never really put it together, regarding an experiencing self and a remembering self, but it makes enough sense. When friends would ask me if I’ve seen a certain movie and it’s kinda hazy to me, I’d reply “I remember seeing it, but I don’t remember anything about it.” The remembering self remembering atleast the experience but not taking away anything substantial from said experience. It may certainly be that the experiencing self goes through life and does more things, and that the weight and importance carried by the remembering self is disproportionate in comparison, but I don’t see this as a negative, or something that should be fixed – a topic that gets addressed in spiritual self help books and other publications of the ilk that encourage you to live in the now, to stop being trapped in the past, etc etc. Going along with Daniel’s theme of happiness, I feel that happiness and satisfaction on an experiential level are fleeting, easily reproduced, and simple. Happiness and satisfaction on a reminiscential level are unique and can last for ages. Different emotions would be a different conversation altogether though; while happiness is something you’d like to remember, pain and discomfort probably aren’t. Daniel also talks about the focusing illusion, which definitely distorts memories over time, so that your perceived memory may not actually be anywhere close to what someone else’s shared memory, but I’ll choose to keep myself ignorant of those complications (for the sake of happiness! ho ho ho)

What he talks about a little but made me really think were his words on vacations, and how he would ‘consume’ those memories through looking at photographs of said vacation. I shoot a whole lot, and especially more during vacations, but to what effect? Am I keeping memories of those moments through pictures, or am I primarily shooting for the sake of shooting – for the experience? I thought about it more, and I’d have to say that my love for photography is definitely experiential. Memories of the experience through photos, while not quite an afterthought, rank below the excitement I get solely for taking pictures. Shooting, composing, and editing are all exciting to me, no matter where the location. Sharing the pictures – showing off, basically – also gives a great deal of satisfaction. But even after all that, I’m stuck on his idea of happiness during a vacation. When Will and I were in Dominican Republic we’d jokingly say “I can’t wait to get back to edit these pictures”, which in all honesty was hardly a joke. The sole purpose of the vacation was to take pictures. Maybe next time I go on vacay I’ll leave the cameras at home and see how much I can enjoy myself solely with the remembering self in mind, and not the experiencing self. (You might take note that this whole offshoot has contradicted my stance on which I prefer, the remembering self or the experiencing self. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the subject.. am I happy because I remember a good experience taking photos or am I happy whenever I am in the moment of taking photos?? Am I anticipating memories by shooting? head asplode)

I’ve talked about my interest in associating music to a memory, and with the TED talk in mind, I think that music heard during an experience definitely solidifies the memory and the song associated with that memory. And more often than not, you’ll forget all lyrical content of the song and simply associate it with a memory – which would lead to some weird matchups. How many R&B songs do I enjoy because of the opportune times I heard them during my life, rather than actually cheating or fucking or creeping? (Now that’s a really extreme example – of course I remember the first song I dedicated to a girl, somewhat loosely based on the lyrics, but you get what I mean right?) There are other ramifications as well, like having a good song ruined by a bad experience, or having the focusing illusion take effect, or is happiness from a memory based on the memory or a song’s upbeat nature. Shit is really deep. The mind is a frightening thing.

This month’s throwback track of the week (throwback track of the week of the month?) is Nas – You Owe Me, with my favorite kind of Timbaland – mid to late 90s Timbaland. Pure gold, most of the tracks he was producing. Ten years ago, this song reached its chart peak at 13 and was hanging around on the charts for 24 weeks. Good job!

+ Themixtapeclub has a new offering for February, and i’m really feelin the chairperson’s tape. Back in January I had my own tape up, it’s a love thing, which was a selection of old funky slowjams. Though now that January is done, you can no longer listen to it on site – not to worry as I’ve done the uploading and mirroring for you! For your enjoyment (and quite apropos for sunday’s fond festivities, if hearts and roses are your kinda thing):
it’s a love thing | mediafire
untracked, individual file version

Earth Wind & Fire – Love’s Holiday
Leon Ware – Turn Out The Light
Angel Bofill – Baby, I Need Your Love
Alfie Silas – Can’t We Do It All Again
Peabo Bryson – Lovers After All
Bobby Williams – You Need Love Like I Do
Alton McClain & Destiny – Why Did You Let Me Love You
Carl Carlton – This Feeling’s Rated X-Tra
Dynasty – Take Another Look At Love
The Gap Band – Yearning For Your Love

+ The announcement of a Daria: The Complete Animated Series box set has brought much joy in the past few days. I remember vegetating on the couch certain weekends watching daria marathons as a kid. And as i’ve been watching a bunch of youtube clips of Daria episodes lately, I’m being reminded of how great the writing was/is. Not to mention all the background audio they’d use in that show, REAL good selection. So much so that people have taken time to document the songs used in each episode. However I heard a rumor that the dvd won’t have all the music because of liscensing issues – but that’s like the best part!?!!? I surely hope the songs stay in tact.

As I’m still interested in the research I did for my promo only calendar(which if you might be interested, I’m selling for $30 shipped/just email), every month I’ll post a throwback track that ranked for that certain month ten years ago. This throwback being Hot Boys – I Need A Hot Girl. Cash Money was in its heyday back then, and Lil Wayne was so audible – no slurring involved. Just realize though that all the monthly bonus throwbacks I post are (just? or already?) ten years old. I know i’ve made an issue about a decade span and the age of certain songs, but it just goes to show how music can stay timeless – it’s just really good at reminding us of how old we are, and that’s nothing to blame music on.

+ The Hurt Locker : I’ve stopped watching trailers (well, as much as I can avoid them) and have tried to watch movies based solely on word of mouth. The Hurt Locker wa recommended twice, which is a far cry from the dozen or so ‘watch Avatar!’ I received, but still enough for me to take note. I watched it the other night and I’m slightly convinced. I feel like every character’s actions were already made for them before they even thought about it – the movie just kinda happened, with or without them. Other than the movie happening, nothing much else happens either – war, death, and violence become very commonplace. However when it gets nearer the end, and they quickly vignette into a soldier’s return to the mundanity of civilian life, then the movie clicked for me. A friend of mine was stationed in Iraq and when he was back in town for break I got to pick his brains, and he seemed most troubled about that exact feeling, coming home and getting in a car and going grocery shopping – the movie told that perfectly. The movie’s first hour and fourty minutes made some more sense after that. It’s okay; the movie drags. However I believe that was the intention.

+ I’ve pretty much finished uploading my Dominican Republic shots, you can check the set here. I’m way way WAY picky about pictures now. I have over 290+ shots and I narrowed it down to those 60ish, and even then I can probably do some more condensing.

Will had already spent a good amount of 2009 traveling, and mostly on Couchsurfing’s dime, so I trusted that we could find couchsurfing members in the DR. Much to our chagrin though, they were not many to be found – atleast the ones that were able to host. If you’ve never heard of Couchsurfing before, the premise is simple – social network for travelers that allows you to either stay at someones house, or host people at your house free of charge. The more people you interact with on Couchsurfer(and that give you positive testimonials), the more people will trust you. It’s an interesting concept that really gives you faith in the goodness of people! However: most people we found on CS were only able to hang out (this option is ‘meet for coffee’ instead of ‘couch available’), so we had to bite the bullet and find hostels for most days. Later after meeting some CS people I was informed that the lack of hosters in the DR could be a cultural thing – people don’t leave the house until they get married, so we’d have to be couchsurfing with families, which might be too close for comfort for people.

Another thing we had to bite the bullet on was the money we spent on the trip. We were trying to be thrifty, but it seemed like most of the locations we went to were very tourist-centric(not really our intention), and the prices were adjusted accordingly. My whole thing when I travel is that I want to get away from tourist trap areas, all those kinda spots that everyone already has pictures of – another good reason to seek out couchsurfers, because they’ll bring you to local spots that are off the beaten path and way cooler. Nearing the end of our trip we were able to meet up with some locals and we got to see some really beautiful parts of DR.

My command of the Spanish language is not horrible, not great – whatever I can remember from my three years of high school Spanish has survived me enough in Los Angeles, but most of the time I can understand through context – atleast I thought. As the trip progressed I tried speaking more Spanish to people, but there were times when I was trying my hardest to understand/reply and people would look at me like what the fuck or just give me like the meanest rolleye, and I’m just like EEEK I’M SO SORRY FOR BUTCHERING YOUR LANGUAGE. I also learned that ‘orale’ is strictly a Mexican thing. Living in L.A. has really narrowed my scope of Spanish slang – there are some pretty sweet ones I learned on the trip.

One thing I’ve got to touch on is the DR sandwich. Them dudes got the sandwich game proper. Everything with copious amounts of cheese and butter. I don’t believe I’ve talked about it, but me and sandwiches are like THIS (crosses fingers), and each time I had a sandwich in DR it was like heaven in my mouth. Most places, whether it’s a restaurant or a cafeteria or a diner-style eatamabob had a very tried and true list of sandwiches that they could make – my favorite of the trip was a completo, which consists of ham & cheese & shredded chicken & butter & a tomato slice, all sandwich pressed. Are you kidding. I think the dealbreaker here is the sandwich press – these fucking things make sandwiches 200% better and I swear I need to have one in my house.

Other than the usual Dominican music – merengue, bachata, etc – the couchsurfers we met up with showed us some local indie music, and it was pretty sick! A reggae band who’s name is currently escaping me, and Rita Indiana y Los Misterios. There was a small live concert for her that we went to, and I enjoyed what I was hearing. Check this track, Jardinera. The keys are really sick on it, the whole song slightly reminds me of Behind The Front era BEP, which I will never not be a fan of, no matter how lame they are currently – my eyes unfortunately were witness to their newest music video one night at another couchsurfers house, I cannot unsee or unhear ;_;

Staying true to my i shoot film mantra, I only brought two film cameras and about thirty rolls of film to use up. I would never trade for digital, but I definitely made a sacrifice in bringing all that film – shit is heavy! My backpack could(and should) have been lighter for easier travel, but I really can’t have it any other way. Plus if I got jacked of my camera I wouldn’t be crying about it. Many times while we were walking around, some good natured people or police would tell us to guard our cameras/hold our straps tight, because it isn’t safe. WHATEVVVVSSS. My only regret is at the Dominican airport, on our flight out – having a good grasp of Spanish would have helped immensely. I wanted to hand check my film because I was worried about x-rays doing the dirty to my negs, but the dude was like ‘no es importa’ and just ran it through anyway. THE NERVE! QUE MAS IMPORTA! And now my negs have an annoying x-ray strip in them. Motherfucker. It’s not THAT bad, it lends the picture some authenticity and i’m all about film imperfections, but ugh – it coulda been avoided.

I know I said that I was going to try and stay away from the internet as much as possible during the trip, but that proved difficult when we had to check Couchsurfing nigh daily to see if we could find people to host us. I still locked myself out of other things by purposely not bringing any electronics except for maybe my camera(no digital!) – no watch, no phone, no ipod, no lcd screens to look at or check constantly during the day. It was liberating. Even as I type up this entry right now, I’m feeling like I shouldn’t be stuck to a monitor – that’ll be tough once work comes around. But that feeling of no responsibilities, no cares in the world except for where to sleep tonight and what we’re doing tomorrow, no attachment – traveling provides it in an unrivaled way. I’m already thinking of the next trip, maybe S.E. Asia sector in May – my aunt lives in Cambodia and I can most likely stay there for free.99 and then just take the bus all over.

The End! I’m sorting through pics already and will be posting them up to my Flickr intermittently, with some more detailed descriptions of how my trip went.

haven’t done a throwback track in a bit, here it be. courtesy of a recent find while crate diggin. and much to my surprise, the lp was also stuffed(stocking stuffed?) with another bobby brown 12″, get away. both have acapellas. FOR THE WIN.

+ hooray, the end of the year means a full-year recap! here it is, quickly:

cool things: up, autotune the news, fat princess, star trek, falling in love with new york, princess and the frog, critical mass, district 9, kevin hart, having a hilarious nephew, taken, father’s office, community, 30 rock, in the valley of elah, building forts, coraline, guppy house (brick toast is the biz), honda-ya, this mpc, ponyo, lonely island shit, karaoke, rudo y cursi, stone ipa, el aura, zelo pizza, inglorious basterds, sfvi, fast & furious, finding out about angela bofill and my mom schooling me on her, hbp, watching my first football game (footy, not american football-also world cup 2010 HUGE!), taking lots of pictures

meh things: blacking out on halloween, monsters vs aliens, kogi taco truck, funny people, google wave, a few not-minor-but-not-major bike injuries, guys that love to talk about how much they enjoyed 500 days of summer, crows zero 2, team edward and/or team jacob, kanye, bakjwi, fml/mlia/etc, shooting a wedding (i originally thought it’d be cool but it’s a lot of work!), bruno, i haven’t really heard any lady gaga song but i suppose that should go on the list, moon, being frequently sick, late hours, addiction to tumblr, wolverine, everyone dying

song/album addictions, released in 2009: energy, yer a jerk, dom kennedy mixtape, road to till the casket drops (i know its 08 but i am still feelin it hard), knock you down, shots, took the night, rockin that shit like, mr yeah, slow dance, back by popular demand, GEEGEEGEEEBABYBABYBABY+IM GENIE FOR YOU BOIIII, i wish that it would rain, boyfriend #2 dj tamiel remix, friend lover. (seems like keri hilson is all over this)

song/album addictions, not released in 2009: i want her, pretty brown eyes, is it good to you, more than a woman, nuttin but love(noxzema girl!), saturday love, touch me, big fun(not the inner city one – the gap band one), man in the mirror, nu nu, bushes (zero valut ver), love for the sake of love, oh sheila, above the clouds. (it’s hard to be accurate/cumulative with this – i routinely delete my whole itunes library and reload all my music, so it resets all my playcounts)

mixes i played out on my ipod: secret weapon, casino heat 2, death of all wack club music, juke chainsaw massacre vol 2, nightmare juke squad mix 02, mixed up in the hague vol 1, the freak beat mixtape, all of richfourfour’s new jack mixes. (i am really into juke/ghettotech shit. it’s like, wyle out who gives a fuck if the neighbors are sleeping)

movies i didnt see/want to see: cloudy with a chance of meatballs, fantastic mr fox, brothers, the informant, good hair, pandorum, transformers 2 kiiiiiiiinda? atleast for the visfx

+ i’m trying to hurry it up with my recap because on the 26th i’ll be out of the country. backpacking in dominican republic/puerto rico for like twoish weeks. i’ll try my darnest to not be around the internet but surely i will succumb.. i’m kind of OCD about archiving/labeling on gmail, and i can already imagine the unbridled joy of organizing tons of unread mail. that shit is crack. fuck the reading part though. i’ll drag labels for days.

+ new comeup podcast by me and mike diggity deuce. i’m in a kind of a slowjammy mood. and to add:

+ check the mixtape club in ‘10 for a guest spot by yours truly, which is on the funk/slowjammy tip. i’m trying to be more critical of my usage of the word love, but it’s hard when probably 80% of popular music is about love or making love. (maybe not so eloquently, lately)

merry christmas/happy holidays/happy new years, see you mid january!

like i said, they are a giveaway for friends/family/relatives (and possibly potential employers!) but if you are indeed interested in one, send me an email and we can work something out.

oxford university press might liken these as new words, but i think there should be a more developed term for this phenomenon – which is very much a new school idea. at first i thought that it could be grouped with skunked terms, but that’s a bit too vocabularily focused: it’s more about actual word definitions taking on new meaning, and not about words being borrowed(borrowed? more like taken over) for movie titles, musician names, internet companies, etc. i’d say that neologisms come closest, especially with the evolution of note, but as i said before the words im talking about are borrowed, not newly coined. hmmm indeed.

• mary j blige – be happy (siik remix)

i’m kinda trippin. i’ve heard that chorus somewhere else before, but it’s eluding me.. help. but yea, ms dynamite’s got a pretty sexy voice.

+ i bought an mpc last week, in hopes of making my first steps into producing. i’ve tried a lot of different software for making beats, and they’ve never really felt too natural for me – always too much involved in learning the software than actually getting down and dirty with the process, and it’s turned me off to most of them. but the mpc pad stuff feels really natural to me. i’m now listening to a lot of my jazz/funk to find things to loop and sample, and it’s all very exciting. yaywoo

+ ooh new website update news! some time ago someone either commented or emailed about having a way to preview the remix before downloading, like some kind of embedded flash player. i was all for it, but i don’t really like that wordpress mp3 player thing – it felt bulky and the fact it extended/retracted was not something very pretty. however! yesterday i found a very very neat mp3 embedding thing that was unobtrusive and could easily adapt into my text-heavy blog. if you check all the remix posts now (here look at this one), the mp3 link will be indented with a seafoam green border-left which allows you to preview/play/pause the song just from clicking it! and you can still right click and save* the mp3 links so you can get ya dl on while its previewing. pretty sweet ass html/js nerdery. if you got your blog on, peep it: SoundManager2 (via waxy)

+ me and the dude linotype got a new mix/podcast goin on representing our most prestigious come up crew, check it out here if you wanna hear us sesh and talk about music and some videogames. (comeup podcasts happen every two weeks, don’t sleep)

+ and a happy kthxgiving to you and yurrs.

*you’ve no idea how many emails or comments i’ve received like ‘hey how do i dl the song’ really? i mean really? how did you get a computer

throwback track of the week, off of the quincy jones – the dude album. i remember finding out ai no corrida was on this cd, then – as usual – asking my dad if he has the cd. and obvs he delivers. this is on some more karaoke steez too; that, 100 ways, and somewhere out there are some choice james ingram to sing to. omg wait just ran into this video, i’ve always been intrigued by the footage that they play during karaoke – usually i hit the ktown spots, and they just show pieces of kdramas and korean movies, but i always enjoyed and preferred these corny ass ones.

++ EDIT WAIT OH MY GOD I ALREADY USED THIS AS A THROWBACK TRACK. SHAMEFUL. /COMMITS SEPPUKU

+ catch me at verdugo bar on november 18 for the devil’s pie la: siik edition. thank you paul and lino and phatrick for hookin it up. i’ll be playing a lot of remixes- some new stuff, some old stuff, and some horrible stuff(no not really playing horrible stuff but best believe i enjoyed that enough to follow through with it). also will be giving out some endless summer cds and stickers so GET@ME.COM when i’m there. ★rsvp on facebook★

+ after that, catch me at pig n whistle on november 21 where i’ll be playing for some homies. it should be cracking. i’ll be playing 90s. you may also ★rsvp on facebook★

+ checked out the brainfeeder sessions last sunday on a whim, and i’m glad i did! i’m very interested in this new and burgeoning field(or is it a resurgence?) of video djing/motion graphics/audivisu/etc, in part because a) it’s pretty damn captivating(if you’ve been to a pbw vj set, the crowd is split between people getting their groove on, people going OHHH SHIT when the music vid drops, and people just staring at the screen dumbfounded) and b) they’re two things i know how to do, and doing both simultaneously would be pretty sweet. the venue at brainfeeder is like a movie theatre and people just chill out in their seats, red stripe in hand, and the dj/vj is in front while the graphics are being projected onto the movie screen. i liked it a lot, and i think there’s a lot of room for creativity/fun that can come from it. i’m gonna have to exploit this some time soon..