mike kostyo

I know food.

happy pig or sad socrates

Even putting aside atrocities, sometimes we deprive ourselves of perfectly good pleasures, including those involving love and companionship, because of the decisions of the long-term self. Think of the workaholic who never sees his children, or the anorexic who denies herself the pleasure of food.

What motivates the short-term self? Some of its pleasures are easy enough to explain: sex and food and friendship are evolutionary no-brainers, we enjoy them because they motivate us in adaptively useful ways. But others are more mysterious.

- The Long and Short of It