Mean Dopes and Dopamine

     Well everyone, this blog post is going to be about one of my priorities in life, which has to do with meaning. I just called my Dad to see how he was doing because he started having some dementia after an aneurysm.  He was doing okay and I asked him a question about rental car insurance, which is kind of a dad question to ask, and I felt good about the conversation, even though I still am hoping for the right time to make sure he has a true concept of how great a dad he has always been.  But anyway, as I was sitting peacefully on my couch after the phone call, my mom texted me to let me know that she was fretting about me driving a rental car after not driving for a few years.  Well for my last trip, she fretted about me not renting a car.  So I think that what is really happening is that she is finding reasons to fret.  And though I have always attributed that problem of hers to anxiety, I think it might be a little different.  I think that really she knew I just had some peace of mind and she wanted to take it away, so she sent me a text about worrying.  And her goal very frequently and possibly with every interaction is to take away my happy feelings as soon as I get them, whether it is from reaching long term goals, maintaining friendships, having some kind of stability, or literally any other kind of circumstance or mental work that can result in a positive feeling. I have known this before and thought it was getting better, but I think that the recent relief and break from it was just so I could accumulate enough happiness for her to take bigger chunks away at one time.  Is it bad to share a family problem like that?  I am going to share it, because something I value in life for me and everyone is meaning, and I think people need to understand how all of the meaning thieves out there get away with making people's lives lose all joy and purpose.  It might seem like this whole emotional abuse dynamic, which is mild compared to some people's experiences, might really have to do with happiness and not meaning.  But I do think it is things like this that can erode people's sense of meaning, because basically everything you work for becomes irrelevant in at least one realm, which is your own emotional experience, which is both subjective and objective.

     There are a lot of articles now about dopamine, and some people make it sound like everything in life basically translates into a bunch of meaningless dopamine transactions in the brain.  Well people had this same discussion about serotonin twenty years ago before the doctors and drug dealers teamed up to rape our country with prescription painkillers and heroin, and it can be an interesting topic.  Because if eating a taco can make you as happy as buying a new car, then maybe it is smart to go for the taco.  And if taking an antidepressant can keep you from bar-hopping your life away, then maybe some intervention directly with the brain chemicals is a good option.

     But I think that at some point, some of the complex aspects of reality, human goals, and actual blessings from God have to be seen as something real that has meaningful impact on not just our lives but our hearts and minds.

     I personally think that a lot of Christian teachers also threaten to make things meaningless, too, by saying that all of our joy should come from God, or what they really mean, which is our imagination of God based on their teaching so they can get credit for our heroic stoicism.  It is really sick, and I think it is just as bad as what my mom does to take away my happy feelings. What these teachers do is say you are not allowed to have some happiness from things like hamburgers or safety, so you prevent the feelings yourself ahead of time either through excessive self denial or by controlling your mind to reject the psychological rewards from good living.  But I think that those teachers are wrong, and that calling all enjoyment and responsibility "idolatry" is a rather ungrateful way to live. Hopefully it is just a phase for most people, and they aren't completely robbed of all blessings in life like friends and jobs and good food and books, but I do think a lot of people are swindled pretty thoroughly before they figure out that the preachers are sustaining their own dopamine levels by controlling everyone.

     To me it is not just about feelings, but about meaning, truth, and reality that gets blocked, with the greatest part of reality being God himself and his great love.  All these dopamine robbers I am talking about are basically forms of abuse, and all can originate with people who might have seemed trustworthy at one time.  The preachers will say they have taken nothing, the bad doctors will say they just took a few drops of brain chemicals, and the emotionally abusive family members will say they were actually giving you something, but to me there is a loss that is too great to be measured. To me, the loss is more than just brain chemicals or a life that wasn't worth experiencing anyway.  The cruelest people of all have figured out that you can block out so much more of the world by torturing people at close range.