This reminds me of Daniel Kahneman's notion of "experiencing self" vs. "remembering self" (the story-telling self). Here's a story he shares in one of his talk

This reminds me of Daniel Kahneman's notion of "experiencing self" vs. "remembering self" (the story-telling self). Here's a story he shares in one of his talks[1] about how the "remembering self" dictates what a person gets to keep as a memory: Now, I'd like to start with an example of somebody who had a question-and-answer session after one of my lectures reported a story, and that was a story -- He said he'd been listening to a symphony, and it was absolutely glorious music and at the very end of the recording, there was a dreadful screeching sound. And then he added, really quite emotionally, it ruined the whole experience. But it hadn't. What it had ruined were the memories of the experience. He had had the experience. He had had 20 minutes of glorious music. They counted for nothing because he was left with a memory; the memory was ruined, and the memory was all that he had gotten to keep. And here's [2] another reference -- "Memory Vs. Experience: Happiness is Relative". [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory/transcript https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_expe... [2] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/memory-vs-experience-happiness-is-relative https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/memory-vs-expe...