Emergence Theory: When describing ourselves, we have to look in the future and past. Descriptions emerge from our lives from the context we supply it and can’t be done solely in the moment.
We like to believe that as we live we can accurately describe ourselves in the current moment. The issue is many of the ways we describe ourselves are through emergent descriptions. To accurately describe ourselves we would then need a surrounding context. This is the emergence theory. Many things in our life can’t be described without creating another world in our minds. These descriptions are less real; if we only could live in the moment, we would not be able to describe them.
What This Means
Descriptions of our lives are created rather than lived. We have to stop focusing so much on how we describe ourselves and more on moments that we live. These descriptions are created after the fact, so they are susceptible to bias and inaccuracies. When we talk about the lives we want or our goals, we should focus more on the experience of moments rather than the story they create.
An Example
Happiness in life can not be determined in the moment. It can only emerge from looking at a chunk of our lives and then evaluating it. One can not say they are happy solely in the moment as the only thing they could experience in the moment is joy. Can you ask a man if he is happy while he is eating his lunch? Not if he is living totally in that moment, maybe he is feeling joy for the meal. We must see the before and after to determine his happiness, for he could be eating his lunch after attending his mother’s funeral.
