Hidden Brain: The Paradox of Pleasure

According to this two-part program (1, 2) basically if you're getting the constant dopamine that a modern person receives, our homeostasis will naturally baseline us in a state of depression. So if you want to not be depressed, you have to pretty actively not live like a modern person (e.g., no internet at home).

 There are so many good nuggets but here were two that I remember:

"In our narcissistic culture, you'll find people want to escape themselves and into something else. We are so inundated with thinking and worrying about ourselves that our escapism shows we want relief from that."

"I thought I was unhappy because my life was hard. It turns out I was unhappy because my life was too easy."

I'm rethinking my relationship with the internet and consumerism, down to things that we typically think are mundane and basic like "listening" to music (and podcast consumption!) I'm already cranky thinking about the withdrawal that will happen without my Youtube crutch, but the program convinced me there is no end to the manufactured infinite quantity of novelty, and each hit digs deeper into the dopamine cache that cannot be satisfied.

The limits of therapy

Not letting Alan Noble corner the market on exegeting modern culture, the late Tim Keller has an extremely incisive chapter in his book Forgive titled, “Our need for forgiveness.” It’s based on an article written by Wilfred McClay on “the strange persistence of guilt,” where the modern (western) person, like all persons before, tries to cover their shame and sense of inadequacy *except this time* without the help of explicit moral categories, which is an idea ironically from Karl Marx. Thanks also to the default acceptance of Nietzsche and Freudian ideas that underlie therapy, mainstream therapy rationalizes and detaches itself from moral universals like guilt.

I don’t want to reduce the chapter to a couple wordbites so would recommend reading it in its entirety, but from personal experience I would agree that cognitive behavioral therapy does not cover dimensions of anxiety that are irrefutably moral and spiritual in their subjective experience. This is by design of course, so it’s not a gotcha. CBT I think helps folks to curb excesses in their *thoughts* to prevent *feelings* and *actions* from a downward spiraling.

But “not spiraling” is different than “joyful.” So what gets in the way of being joyful that CBT can’t address? It’s that nagging sense that you’re not good enough, useful enough, or loved enough, by other people or by yourself. No amount of CBT self-thought-policing with affirmations of “I am worthy” will actually sit deeply unless you bring about some standard of, well, what makes someone worthy to begin with?

The deflecting person will look outside and see how society and other people have unfairly deemed them unworthy (e.g., “not smart enough for the job”, “not funny or pretty enough for friends”). This is an archetype that fits the modern MO – victimhood is righteousness. Even if that situation is true, there are two problems: the practical problem is that mere acknowledging doesn’t really help one find joy, and the philosophical problem is therein lies a moral judgment. Those two words CBT is highly allergic to. The moral judgment is that other people are the guilty ones.

But how do you guide a CBT client with this complaint? You have to somehow straddle “those judgments by other people are not true” and “those people may have understandable reasons for treating you this way (a la amygdala function).” A bit vacuous and not joy-inspiring. This is what I actually experienced in my CBT sessions, and this is not an accusation but just an observation on what conflicts surface within this framework.

The honest person will look inside and see that, yes, there are truly things that make them unworthy. A spiteful heart, destructive habits, ungracious attitudes. Dr. Keller cutely quips Instagram is not enough to cover these things we know to be true of ourselves. Pronouncing all guilt onto other people is creating an artificial, or rigged, scale to make sure we don’t acknowledge the inadequacy/shame that we don’t know what to do with (thanks to Nietzsche). CBT would posit that you’ve developed your unworthy traits as your body’s natural way of dealing with stress, and thus we need to reprogram the brain to think-feel-act accordingly.

The “best case” is you start to act in ways that are more righteous. But that doesn’t solve the inherent problem of sensing right vs. wrong actions in the first place. And so when you inevitably do something wrong, you behavior manage your way out and hopefully don’t think too deeply as to why you keep feeling dissatisfied.

To his credit, Dr. Noble does dedicate a whole chapter to the limits of therapy in his essay-book On Getting Up In The Morning. He does not downplay the need for it but acknowledges that it’s hit-or-miss at best. Positively speaking, CBT has been beneficial for me to understand better how I think, why I operate in a certain manner, and increase my capacity for compassion when others act destructively. And it is a sort of relief to know that it doesn’t, shouldn’t, and can’t address the lingering accusations, which compel a need for deep acceptance and love from a worthy party.

mindfulness

I had this moment after a counseling session where dots finally connected. My therapist has been recommending a mix of, one, doing activities unburdened by responsibility (time off, non-family hangouts), and two, pausing during the day to be mindful (I think "mindful" is a fancy way of saying "be present"). Then I later thought to myself, "What if those two things actually operate the same way?"

The first category suggests that humans crave new experiences, mystery, and adventure, and much of modern unhappiness stems from our finding artificial ways to pump dopamine, through videos and feeds, to less and less effect. It's the reason why when I went back to the office after a year, poring through my emails became a much more enthralling and delightful thing, just by changing the scene.

The second category of "mindful" practices, from what I understand, involves training the mind to be completely engaged in the present. If you're eating, take in every taste and texture (so eat slowly). If you're walking, before absentmindedly listening to a podcast, first appreciate the surrounding nature and architecture and all it took to make those things come to be. If you're breathing, notice your chest expanding and the air cycling through your nose. It's sort of like being a kid again.

Now my theory is that, practically, the first category of doing exciting things pretty much lends itself to being more mindful. That is, when you're doing something new, you're naturally just much more present. You're more likely to take time and enjoy the sights when commuting in a new city, whereas a dulled local pays no mind anymore. And since it's much harder nowadays to do particularly exciting things (safely), is the takeaway then to simulate a sense of new wonder in routine things?

I tried today, and to a degree it works. My errands seemed less hurried and more relaxed. I let go of future problems, which tend to establish themselves prematurely in my brain.

It's better than the converse: constantly chasing exciting new stimuli. That obviously doesn't scale. Here's an old Instastory when I was traveling; restless and unable to sit still, I found myself *bored* trying to absorb 4 programs at once.

Even without travel, I'm not at a particularly better spot at the moment. A weird thing about quarantine is that, out of a pathological desire to not be bored, I've produced a robust catalog of dozens of activities and goals to keep me busy. But by chasing the stimuli and not savoring the process, the terribly irony is I'm quite bored with all of them.

Tangential NYT article: Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It's Called Languishing