Are you in charge of your life? Or are you a slave to your brain’s desire for chemical happiness?
I recently saw a TED talk from a presenter titled “The Secret of Desire in a Long Term Relationship” that led me to ask myself this very question. As the title suggests, this TED talk was about long-term relationships and why so many modern marriages end up failing. The speaker, a relationship therapist named Esther Perel, noted that couples today often fail because they expect their partner to meet two opposing human needs: the need for comfort and reliability and the need for novelty and excitement.
This valuable insight made me realize how much of our lives can be viewed as a search for these two states of mind. Sex, for example, is commonly understood as fueled by novelty. Gary B. Wilson’s popular book and website Your Brain on Porn, for example, explains how addiction to internet porn is in fact a dopamine rush addiction that you get from finding a new video of interest. While it may seem easy to poke fun at internet porn addicts, this trend is a microcosm of our society’s growing dependence on technology and the easy access to dopamine spikes that this allows. Those who read this article, ask yourselves: what motivation is behind this act? The entire self-improvement movement is based on small dopamine spikes that are found when one considers that they have achieved “success.”
While what I’m saying may seem obvious, many people forget to consider how slaves they are to their brain’s desire for positive feelings.
But is this really a new phenomenon? I do not believe it. Before the invention of computers or smartphones allowed access to pornography, people had their solution elsewhere: playboy, erotic call centers, peep-show booths, and Victoria’s Secret catalogs, all attest to. it. Sure, the ease of access today is unprecedented, but it’s still the same story of the brain searching for dopamine. Even in the 1950s, Leave It Up to Beaver-Style Existence, the archetypal businessman had to have his night pipe, slippers, and newspaper. Isn’t this the image of the search for dopamine? Instant gratification, comfort and novelty, all in one satisfying ritual.
Okay, so we accept that we are controlled by our brains, so what? Is there any value in that understanding? Should we try to counter this behavior? Some think that this is the purpose of religion. In the Middle Ages, for example, the Church played a vital role in controlling lustful knights who returned from the Crusade with an unhealthy appetite to kill, rape, and loot. Biologically, those gentlemen were likely chasing a dopamine rush similar to “junkies” of all kinds today.
Many religions impose rules that work to curb our unhealthy appetite for self-gratification, to make us more selfless, and to care about others. The obvious caveat to this is that performing a “selfless” act could become an alternative way to ensure that same surge of positive feelings, and become a selfish act in itself. Believing that charity takes you to heaven is no different than believing that the slot machine you’ve been playing will eventually “pay off.”
Of course, philosophers and religious scholars will argue that selfless acts add good to the world, which has a net positive effect. I do not deny this. However, what I mean here is that almost all of our lives are controlled by the need to feel “good”, whether from novelty or familiarity.
Does this make life less meaningful?
Are we all selfish addicts?
The answer to the last question is, in a real sense, yes. We spend most of our lives chasing pleasure. However, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. While it may be responsible for the continued popularity of Keeping up with the Kardashians, the human brain’s dopamine reward system is responsible for everything humans have created that is charming, magnificent, divine, delicious, or just plain cool in this world. . Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Van Gough’s Starry Night, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, none of these works would exist were it not for the brain’s desire for sweet, sweet dopamine.
So, go ahead and enjoy a reality show, sex and chocolate and thank your brain for its service (interested).