If you could spend one year in perfect happiness but afterward remember nothing of the experience would you do so? If not, why not?
This question asks Dr. Gregory Stock in his bestselling book "The Book of Questions".
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How would you answer this question for yourself?
I think this question can be related to the whole life. No matter what you experience in your life, all those beautiful and liveable moments, are they worth anything only if you remember them in the end? Or is just the moment worth something?
As humans, we have learned to anchor our thinking in the future. This, of course, is also an important evolutionary and cultural achievement. We do not just think about the here and now. We are able to jump forward and backward on the timeline. Forward to the future to create visions of the future and to align our current actions. Back to the past to evaluate the past and learn from it for the present and the future.
Which perspective has a higher priority?
Or is the top priority to be permanently able to change the perspective?
If I'm in the here and now, then a year full of happiness is still the best I can wish for. If there were not the tormenting thought of the future, in which I have forgotten the past then and it is therefore worth nothing.
Have I lost the value of the past if I do not remember it?
What about people with senile dementia? Until the onset of dementia, they may have had a life of happiness, but then they can not remember anything.
Well, you did not ask them before, it was not a conscious decision.
When we consciously make the decision as in the above question, we are left with a lot of doubt and try to evaluate which phase we attribute more value to: the present or the subsequent evaluation of the past in the future.
Is there a universal answer to this question?
I think no.How would I answer the question?
We never know what the future holds, so it can not be a mistake to focus on happiness in the present.
At the same time, however, doubts creep in again, because we also shape the future through the present, and not everything that makes us happy now helps us to be happy in the future as well.
Sometimes it is just the delayed gratification, which in retrospect can bring us even greater happiness in the sense of the big picture.
I see that I am trapped in a dilemma, I like to experience happiness and I want to remember it afterwards, so that my life also seems to me to be happy and meaningful in the subsequent evaluation.
What do you think? Can you answer this question?
It is not possible to be happy for a full year. Emotions come and go.
Yeah, you're right. I think it's more like a hypothetical questions. But maybe a person can feel that way, even though there are bad circumstances. But in general, I totally agree that emotions come and go and a stable emotion for one year seems to be very unlikely.
@askanything by the way: cool concept, that you support questions. I think life is all about asking the right questions. Like the old philosophers already said: the answers are there, you just need to ask the corresponding questions.
Yes, the truth is worth taking some times to find it. Thank you.
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