Have any of you seen ‘Where’d You Go Bernadette’? I’ve wanted to watch it for a long time and finally got around to it last night. The intro really hit me , which is why I want to share it here with you:
“Have you ever heard that the brain is like a discounting mechanism? Say, someone gives you a present and it’s a diamond necklace and you open it and you love it. You’re all happy at first. Then the next day it still makes you happy. Although a bit less so. A year later you see the necklace and you think, “Oh, that old thing.”
And you know why your brain discounts things? It’s for survival. You need to be prepared for new experiences because they could signal danger.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could reset that since there aren’t a lot of saber-toothed tigers jumping out at us? Seems like a design flaw that our brain’s default settings signal danger and survival instead of something like joy or appreciation.
I think that’s what happened to my mom. She got so focused on picking up danger signals that her discounting mechanism forgot to see all the good stuff in her life. And maybe Dad had quit seeing the diamond necklace side of mom.”
I pinched the photograph from this interesting article in Architectural Digest https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whered-you-go-bernadette-movie-production-designer-interview