The Narrative Self and the Eternal Now
Reconciling experience and identity
Sam Harris (in Waking Up) illustrated how hard it is to live in the moment, saying, “And every morning, we are chased out of bed by our thoughts.” That’s what happens to me. I wake, maybe even keep my eyes closed, but the thought motor coughs a couple of times and then starts humming. It’s telling bits and pieces of my life story: what I have before or might later do, feel, wish, or think.
So I am not in the now, but am I also wasting time? There’s a spectrum of experts who think that personal identity is like a narrative: a life story about you. Furthermore, they think that the tiny stories of the wandering mind are like sentences that, were they summarized and pasted in the right order, would generate the big story that is your personal identity. Nobody thinks that your big story exists as a single thing, as an autobiographical book exists. It’s more like you keep coming back to the story (“Wish I had been a race car driver.” “I need to be a better steward of our environment.” etc.) sometimes on your own, and other times because your social environment cracks its whip to remind you.
Other authorities, from the ancient Hindu and Buddhist sages to moderns like Sam Harris, counsel us instead to stay in the present and silence the wandering mind. Thus the popularity of…
