Who are our favorites for?
If you look around your immediate environment, you’ll probably find that you’ve assembled a lot of objects. Who assembled them?
In contrast with Freud, Alfred Adler thought that we are not pushed into the future by our past, but rather pulled into it by images we create of our future selves.
“Past Me” “Present Me” “Future Me” By Tom Guarriello & MidJourney
Given that, I think about my favorite things as having been brought together by “me”…not by my “present me,” but by a “past me.” What was “past me” using as criteria for assembling those objects? Beyond the differences in details in acquiring a sweater at 15 and at 35, something was guiding those choices that we imagined would be persistent. “Past me” thought that “future me” would like that sweater, or “past me” probably wouldn’t have chosen it.
It’s “as if” we really do imagine ourselves into our futures.
What does that mean about our favorite things? It means that rather than these things being symbolic attempts to come to terms with unresolved conflicts from the past (Oedipal or other) they are a way of constructing our idealized images of ourselves in the future. We live as if we are building something…a life that we will want to live in…in the future. As if we are living out a dimly realized fictional picture of ourselves in the world of the future, and pull together an ensemble of elements that will bring that future to life.
What makes this world a “fiction” is that it assumes that “future me” will conform to that future world when, on a moment’s reflection, we confront the reality that “present me” does not perfectly conform to what “past me” thought “future me’s” life would be like! We are, after all, dynamic, contextualized presences in the world, and those future contexts (which we literally cannot imagine) make all the difference. “Past me” had no idea what “present me’s” world would be like.
“Present me” may very well be pursuing the same set of core goals and ideals as “past me.” But the contextual details make a lot of difference in how we pursue those goals. We may buy an item of clothing with the intent of projecting “present me’s” cool style at a party, but find that “future me” works in a place where that item is a normal part of everyday attire; it’s now not only not cool, but practically invisible.
Brands are constantly working the spaces between “past me,” “present me,” and “future me.” Favorite brands have become favorites because of their meaningful contribution to the ensemble of items that “past me” chose to express itself. As long as “present me” conforms reasonably well with “past me’s” fictional projections, those favorites have a good chance of remaining favorites.
But, if “present me” begins to imagine a “future me” that is appreciably different from earlier imagined versions, that ensemble of favorites is likely to get shaken up. Think about that phrase…”I want to shake things up a little…” What we’re saying is that “present me” is now imagining a future world and a “future me” that aren’t like they are now.
“Out” with some of the old, in with some new!
It’s informative (and sometimes a bit shocking!) to go back and look at our accumulated collections of favorite things and see how many of them no longer “work” in “present me’s” world. “What was I thinking when I bought that?” we ask ourselves. The answer is that we were thinking of a “me” in a world that turned to be very different from the one we currently find ourselves in.
Those “what was I thinking?” objects serve as concrete reminders of abstract concepts like “change,” “freedom,” or “growth.” As we move on in life, the former meaning of those objects becomes clearly visible to “present me” in ways that they were not when “past me” acquired them.
When we think of it that way, it gives the term “object lesson” a whole new meaning.
Tom Guarriello is a psychologist, consultant, and founding faculty member of the Masters in Branding program at New York’s School of Visual Arts. He’s spent over a decade teaching psychology-based courses like The Meaning of Branded Objects, as well as leading Honors and Thesis projects. He’s spearheaded two podcasts, BrandBox and RoboPsych, the accompanying podcast for his eponymous website on the psychology of human-robot interaction. This essay was originally posted on Guarriello’s Substack, My Favorite Things.
Header photo by Copson London via Death to Stock.