Posted by BBob on June 12, 2000, at 15:14:52
In reply to Re: question about dopamine, posted by Johnturner77 on June 12, 2000, at 14:24:53
> I suspect what CarolAnn really was asking was; is there a natural substance, that when taken over time, awakens the ability of the brain to experience pleasure and enhances the drive for reward?
Would that substance perhaps be balanced involvement in a sustainable culture? I think that would be substantial.That may sound smarmy, but I mean it with all of my aching, concerned heart. I am sincerely concerned that upregulation of our drive for reward downgrades our ability to experience pleasure.
I have said this again and again on P-babble, but if the nuerology labs were as busy exploring the normal function of our brains as they were looking for drugs to control those functions, and if they were so open-minded as to allow that their findings might indict our consumer culture, they might begin to tell us in specific neurological terms that such pleasures as attaining a graduate degree, winning a league championship, buying a new ski boat or riding a 747 to Paris increases dopamine 6 fold but also seems to rapidly deplete dopamine reserves in the same way as does marijuana.
On the otherside, intentionally experiencing a natural setting, with no hope of reward but that of the experience itself, might allow receptors to rest and perhaps restore themselves to a more reasonable density so that witnessing the coming of spring, blossoming of a flower or even coming of autumn and the end of a life is sufficient reward in its own right.
Enjoying natural pleasures, I believe, is especially important because the experience likely allows our brains to experience ourselves as part of a meta-system that requires few controling reactions on our part. That is faith in its pure form - faith in something beyond our own human constructs.
These feelings we are so ready to call depression, I have learned in my own life, are often the feelings associated with not requiring myself to satisfy the ever-increasing need for pleasure and reward. I have found a melancholy comfort in enduring these feelings, and hope with all of my heart that, in future generations, the general expectation of reward will not be so great as to trigger the countercoup we call depression.
poster:BBob
thread:36828
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000610/msgs/37067.html