The Company We Keep
Our associations with people and ideas matter just as much in life as they do in memory and thought
I was driving to the gym the other day when a thought stirred in me about memory and influence.
Some moments from our lives return to us constantly, reshaping how we see ourselves with each remembering. Some moments in our lives sit so strongly in memory that they continually come back to us, over and over. And, yet, there are a great many moments that rather quickly fade to time, some of them being lost forever.
It made me wonder:
If you could choose which moments to remember—the ones that build who you are—would you choose the same memories that currently define you?
Our memories define who we think we are.
There’s a chapter in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow where he explores the ways in which we view what our lives are as our own story. He ends the chapter with the thought, “Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.” And our remembering selves are fairly particular about the company they like to keep inside of our minds.
Throughout history, thinkers have recognized that we become reflections of the company that our experiencing selves keep as well. “Tell me with whom you consort and I will tell you who you are,” wrote Goethe, “If I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you.” We are equally shaped by the people and ideas with which we associate in our day-to-day lives as we are by the memories we revisit, the ideas we hold on to, and the internal voices we cultivate.
Marcus Aurelius understood this when he wrote that “the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
Just as bad company corrupts good character, our habitual thoughts and memories stain us indelibly. The question becomes: are we choosing our stains deliberately? Are we intentionally building a mental structure that drives our character as much as the people and ideas with whom we associate?
In recent years, I’ve maintained an “internal council” of thinkers from the past—mental representations with whom I can dialogue about how they might respond to various situations. An older article from The Art of Manliness explores this idea as “The Cabinet of Invisible Counselors“ (and it might be where I first encountered it as a concept). These phantom advisors at times will help to shape my thinking as surely as any living friend or colleague.
Our dual influences, our external associations and internal flow of memory and thought, are a major part of our personalities and defining characteristics. And we often (but not always) get to choose how we curate those influences. We choose which people and ideas to let in from the world, and in some ways we can choose which memories and thoughts to amplify within our minds (of course, there are powerful, emotionally-bound memories that our minds will selectively keep and force us to revisit, even if there are some that we’d really rather not).
There are a variety of concepts in this realm that have been handed down to us through time. “What you feed grows, what you starve dies”, “ Where your attention goes, your energy flows”, “bad company corrupts good behavior”, etc. Many such statements can be platitudinal (which is the first time I’ve ever been able to write the adjective form of platitude), but these ideas all show that many people through time have recognized our influences, both in our own minds as well as in our daily lives.
The people in your life, the ideas you consume, the memories you rehearse, the mental voices you entertain—these are all your company. And they’re all making you who you are, one moment of attention at a time.
Trying out something a little shorter than my usual writing today. Moving into 2026, I’ll still be sharing regular full-length essays, Friday Meanderings, Astrobiology 101, book club posts, and more here on The Cosmobiologist, but I also have some other writing projects that are going to be demanding of my time a bit more. I’m going to experiment a bit with some more regular short pieces, and I also will be sharing some things written by others. As always, Id love to know what ideas and writings interest you the most.
Until next time, stay curious!