try living with someone who lacks a memory. The rhythm of do something nice = credibility gain is immediately snapped and you’ll be forced to witness how much of your own esteem was a product of that tried and true formula.

This reckoning is all the more severe if nobody else knows that you live with someone lacking a memory. It’s just you, all alone, doing yeoman’s work for the direct benefit of someone who won’t actually really know what you are doing. Except, of course, outside of the in-the-moment appreciation that may never be properly communicated, but must be felt, if only for an instant.