ASMR and Cringe Memories

Have you ever been listening to music, and you get goose bumps, and the hair stands up on the back of your neck, and you feel euphoric?

There is such a thing as ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Here is a short bit from Wikipedia:

An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson. ASMR is a subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin." It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control.

I’ve had this a number of times in my life, almost always related to music. Eleven years ago, I was driving to work in the morning, down Highway 501, when Eric Prydz’s “2Night” came on my iPod. There was something about the way the sun was shining, my mood, the weather, and the piano riffs in that song that all came together and conspired to make me feel joy. I started to cry, spontaneously. A few weeks later I listened to the song again, to try to trigger the same response. Didn’t happen. Now, when I listen to the song, I think it is kind of cheesy. Because Eric Prydz is cheesy. You know what song does it to me every time, though? Mat Zo’s “Superman,” which I played live at a party in 2012. Back then, Mat Zo was playing some of the most beautiful uplifting trance around. Now he plays electro house. He later told people that while he was writing all this beautiful music, he was suicidal, and if he ever started producing uplifting trance again, you should probably check him into a hospital. I’ll leave the link here, and you can hear for yourself. Just listened to it again. ASMR again.

Then, on the other side of the spectrum, you have cringe memories. These are things you did in the past that you regret, except they bubble to the surface from time to time, when you least expect it. I wrote a whole piece on regrets—I have done a lot of dumb shit in my life, and I continue to do dumb shit. I did stuff when I was fifteen that makes me cringe today. I have done stuff last week that makes me cringe today. Cringe memories are the worst—you’ll be in the shower in the morning, and for some inexplicable reason, you’ll think about the girlfriend you ghosted in high school, because you were too much of a coward to break up with her properly. And you crushed her. It was a mistake, you regret it, but the memory keeps bubbling to the surface. You should not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could forget it, if each day was a tabula rasa and we could start fresh, instead of having to deal with the wreckage? Even if you make amends to these people, the memory persists. I was puttering around the house the other day and I had four cringe memories, one after another. I had to sit down for a moment.

Here is what it comes down to—I want to have more ASMR and fewer cringe memories. I had a therapist who once told me to write down five things that bring me joy. The first one was easy—music. Then the cats. What after that? Writing brings me joy—about 10% of the time. When I am really rolling, when the words are flowing, and I know I have written a masterpiece, it brings me joy. The other 90% of the time, it is a slog. (This piece falls into the 90%.) The point was to do more things that bring you joy and less things that don’t, like alcohol and drugs and sex. Lots of people confuse ASMR with sex, or having an orgasm. They are two different things. An orgasm lasts a few seconds—the joy from ASMR lasts forever. I still think about that time in the car in 2012.

So I wanted to tell you about something that happened recently that gave me ASMR. Marching band was a big part of my life in high school, probably the best and most indelible influence on my perfectionism and work ethic. For the past few years, I have been helping my high school marching band in myriad ways, sometimes financially. I was back at the school a couple of years ago, and saw some of the uniforms hanging on the wall, and I asked, how old are these uniforms? And the band director says, they’re 20 years old, and we don’t even use them anymore. We make digital prints every year. I made a mental note of that and went back to writing newsletters in South Carolina.

Over the past year or so, the development folks and I have been working on a design for new uniforms for the marching band. And let me tell you, they are hot. So freaking cool. So I donated the money, without hesitation, and flew back up to Connecticut to watch them at their band competition. Before they took the field, we had all the kids gather ‘round, and I announced to the band that they were all getting new uniforms. Pandemonium. The kids were going nuts. The head of school told me that it was the best thing he’d seen in weeks.

And there it was—ASMR. Goosebumps and all. I will never forget it. I will never forget the looks on those kids’ faces, the band director, the night sky, the drumlines warming up in the distance—I will always remember those details.

Giving brings me ASMR. When I discovered that, the world opened up. It should have been on the list of things that brought me joy, but I hadn’t discovered it yet. If you could feel joy by pushing a button, how many times are you going to push the button? I will probably never be rich enough to donate a wing of MoMa. I will probably never be rich enough to have a building named after me. But I will do what I can.

I have never written an essay on giving, because I am not an expert at it. I have a theory on helping people in general—it’s not for the people who need it, it’s for the people who want it. Giving should be not too different from investing—you want a rate of return. Of course, it’s senseless to expect a financial rate of return, but you don’t want to be pouring money down a black hole, either. I’m not a fan of giving that temporarily alleviates one’s suffering; I’m a fan of the kind of giving that changes the course of someone’s life. There is too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

As for the cringe memories, we all have them. I was a black belt asshole for about 14 years of my life. Tons of regrets. The good news is that they are fleeting. I don’t live in the past. I think cringe memories exist as a reminder not to be a dickhead in the future. I think we need these reminders. But I tell you what, I sure would like less of them. I will tell you one of my favorite cringe memories. The Lehman holiday party in December, 2005 (of course). This was in my drinking days, and my object was to get to the party as fast as possible so I could load up on free beer and wine before anyone else got there. I was about eight glasses of wine deep when I bumped into a female equity research analyst that I recruited to the firm the previous year. She looked not unlike Taylor Swift. So I’m drunk, and ranting, and sweating, when I realize that I have sloshed wine all over her fancy shoes. And I look up at her, and the look of contempt that she gave me—I will never forget. And I never saw her again. She probably still thinks I’m a drunk idiot. A small thing, but a moment of complete and utter humiliation. That one has stuck with me for 18 years—I’ll never forget that look.

Yeesh. Let’s not do that anymore. Speaking of which, I bet 90% of people’s cringe memories come from when they’re drunk. So there is an easy solution to that. Even with the 10% left over, I still have plenty of fuck-ups. No, let’s focus on the things that bring us joy. What are the things that bring you joy?

1._____________

2._____________

3._____________

4._____________

5._____________

Let’s do more of that.