One of the more thought provoking books I've read recently is the best seller 'Dopamine Nation. Finding balance in the age of indulgence' (2021) by Anna Lembke.
The book discusses the widespread addiction to dopamine from things that make you feel good without effort, such as drugs, many aspects of the net and consumerism. The author argues these things may release happy chemicals but will make you feel bad afterwards and you will need more and more to get less and less of a high.
Instead she suggests pain may be initially unpleasant but you will get a high afterwards. Taking the middle path between pleasure and pain being the wise, healthy option, much as Buddha said, but arguing we now also need to push slightly towards pain to balance the over abundance of addictive pleasure in the economy.
The author talks at length about her own addiction to vampire romance novels and Fifty Shades of Grey. I can't help wondering if she is talking about masochism when she advocates pain, which certainly does provide pleasure for some people but may be unhealthy, especially extended to all aspects of life not just sex.
But the book does get you thinking about how much "happy" neurochemicals (not just dopamine, also endorphin, oxytocin, adrenaline and serotonin) influence or even control people's behavior.
Many things release these chemicals, and different people seem to get this high from different things, presumably due to a combination of genes and upbringing. Being kind "the helpers high", winning, harmony or beauty, competing, cooperating, sharing, drama/crisis or "action", discovery, creating or achieving something, solving a problem, status, power and probably many other things are different, in some cases seemingly incompatible, ways of getting a high.
Achievement is especially interesting and resembles the high following pain Lembke talks about, but I think it is different in an important way. Working to achieve something is often painful or difficult but you get a flood of positive neurochemicals when you see the result. This is not the same as as the release of chemicals to comfort you when you eat chili peppers or get into cold water, which Lembke advocates, but perhaps that happens as well.
It is worth asking which highs are appropriate and desirable in civilization, which many or all of these neurochemical highs predate. Some may be more healthy and ethical than others. Is the ancient instinctive high of "winning" for instance really appropriate anymore in modern civilized, especially egalitarian, society?
We may be able to increase our self-control and quality of life through awareness of how these chemicals influence or determine our behavior. It may also be that kind people, say, are actually no more ethical (in intent) than cruel people, they may both just be seeking the same neurochemical high in different ways. Is it even possible to act contrary to what these chemicals are telling us to do, to act on principle when it doesn't feel good say, or is acting on principle also pursued because of positive reward from neurochemicals?
Perhaps rehabilitative psychotherapy could be developed to help a criminal or dictator addicted to the exhilarating neurochemical high of dominance/winning to transition to getting a high from harmony or sharing. Quite likely a more mild, civilized, sustainable high as Lembke advocates.
I have not thought much about how exactly.
Maybe this sort of thing is being done already but I'm not aware of it.
