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Peaks and endings
12 March 2021
How does memory-making work? What will we remember about this year of pandemic?
A year ago yesterday, the World Health Organisation declared the coronvirus a global health pandemic. I find myself wondering what we will remember about this tumultuous year when it’s (hopefully) in the distant past. We’ve all had such different experiences of lockdown living depending on our our home lives, our jobs, our health, our families and many other factors.
In researching neuroscience for the book I'm writing, I've learned that our brains are not well designed for processing time. They hold onto certain memories and stories rather than accessing our full range of experiences. Our sense of happiness is determined by our average happiness over time, not the sum of all happy moments. In the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, ‘peaks and ends matter, duration does not’.
The peaks might be joyful, celebratory or hilarious moments but they might also be intense peaks for less cheerful reasons - sadness, loss, despair, anxiety or insecurity. Not being able to see grandparents, worrying about jobs, feeling isolated, seeing how much our children miss their friends and their school community, losing loved ones to Covid.
The fact that we don’t remember duration as well resonates with me. I can’t believe we’ve been living with the pandemic for a year now. In some ways, it has flown by. And one thing I have heard repeatedly is that people’s sense of time passing during the lockdowns has become much more blurred. I’ve certainly found it hard to remember which day of the week it was at times; when your daily routine has little variation, each day seems to dissolve into the next.
I find endings fascinating. Some endings announcement themselves in advance, like our pathway out of lockdown. Some endings happen without us noticing until a long time later. I never consciously decided to stop going clubbing but I’m struggling to remember when I last did. Some endings are of our own choosing, like changing jobs or moving house. Others befall us, like redundancy, bereavement or ill health.
The expert on managing transitions, William Bridges, says it’s important that we acknowledge and celebrate endings properly before we move onto the new. This is because to cope well with change, however excited we are about it, we need to acknowledge that there’s always some kind of personal loss tied up in the ending part. This applies in our work lives as much as in our home lives. At work, a change might mean an end to familiar, confident ways of doing things, a loss of autonomy or status, or a valued relationship.
So, peaks I’ll remember from this past lockdown? They’re mostly about the fun we’ve had as a family, particularly our Saturday night ‘travels’. Each Saturday we’ve picked a country, ransacked the house for representative outfits and accessories and cooked a meal typical of our destination. We’ve skied in France, strummed guitars in Mexico, line danced in mid-west USA, sunned ourselves in the Seychelles, blinged up as Russian oligarchs, made sushi in Japan and many more. We’ve all loved it and the photos will definitely be making it in to the Pandemic album (and definitely not onto social media).
Yes there have been less happy peaks too. We’ve very fortunately stayed Covid-free and been able to continue working but we’ve had moments of great worry about others we care about. And we’ve missed seeing our wider family and our friends enormously.
But as spring nears - as I write I can see the pinky-white blossom starting to burst open on our ancient flowering cherry tree - we’re also nearing the gradual lifting of our social restrictions (subject to meeting the required conditions). So maybe now is the time to start thinking about marking the ending of lockdown and winter. If endings matter so much in building happy memories, how do we make this ending as positive as possible? How can we celebrate this turning point? What, if anything, might we feel nostalgic about when we look back over this time in the years ahead? For some of us it may be nothing, just overwhelming relief. For others, sadly, it may be the presence of a loved one.
There are some things I’ll miss, to my surprise. But I’m most definitely looking forward to starting the next chapter and enjoying the freedom that summer will hopefully bring us. And adding to that mental album of memories.
In researching neuroscience for the book I'm writing, I've learned that our brains are not well designed for processing time. They hold onto certain memories and stories rather than accessing our full range of experiences. Our sense of happiness is determined by our average happiness over time, not the sum of all happy moments. In the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, ‘peaks and ends matter, duration does not’.
The peaks might be joyful, celebratory or hilarious moments but they might also be intense peaks for less cheerful reasons - sadness, loss, despair, anxiety or insecurity. Not being able to see grandparents, worrying about jobs, feeling isolated, seeing how much our children miss their friends and their school community, losing loved ones to Covid.
The fact that we don’t remember duration as well resonates with me. I can’t believe we’ve been living with the pandemic for a year now. In some ways, it has flown by. And one thing I have heard repeatedly is that people’s sense of time passing during the lockdowns has become much more blurred. I’ve certainly found it hard to remember which day of the week it was at times; when your daily routine has little variation, each day seems to dissolve into the next.
I find endings fascinating. Some endings announcement themselves in advance, like our pathway out of lockdown. Some endings happen without us noticing until a long time later. I never consciously decided to stop going clubbing but I’m struggling to remember when I last did. Some endings are of our own choosing, like changing jobs or moving house. Others befall us, like redundancy, bereavement or ill health.
The expert on managing transitions, William Bridges, says it’s important that we acknowledge and celebrate endings properly before we move onto the new. This is because to cope well with change, however excited we are about it, we need to acknowledge that there’s always some kind of personal loss tied up in the ending part. This applies in our work lives as much as in our home lives. At work, a change might mean an end to familiar, confident ways of doing things, a loss of autonomy or status, or a valued relationship.
So, peaks I’ll remember from this past lockdown? They’re mostly about the fun we’ve had as a family, particularly our Saturday night ‘travels’. Each Saturday we’ve picked a country, ransacked the house for representative outfits and accessories and cooked a meal typical of our destination. We’ve skied in France, strummed guitars in Mexico, line danced in mid-west USA, sunned ourselves in the Seychelles, blinged up as Russian oligarchs, made sushi in Japan and many more. We’ve all loved it and the photos will definitely be making it in to the Pandemic album (and definitely not onto social media).
Yes there have been less happy peaks too. We’ve very fortunately stayed Covid-free and been able to continue working but we’ve had moments of great worry about others we care about. And we’ve missed seeing our wider family and our friends enormously.
But as spring nears - as I write I can see the pinky-white blossom starting to burst open on our ancient flowering cherry tree - we’re also nearing the gradual lifting of our social restrictions (subject to meeting the required conditions). So maybe now is the time to start thinking about marking the ending of lockdown and winter. If endings matter so much in building happy memories, how do we make this ending as positive as possible? How can we celebrate this turning point? What, if anything, might we feel nostalgic about when we look back over this time in the years ahead? For some of us it may be nothing, just overwhelming relief. For others, sadly, it may be the presence of a loved one.
There are some things I’ll miss, to my surprise. But I’m most definitely looking forward to starting the next chapter and enjoying the freedom that summer will hopefully bring us. And adding to that mental album of memories.
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