Every once in awhile I like to connect all the dots of existence and explain how our emotional relationship to the universe matters. When such a conversation happens, I sometimes share it here for the reader’s benefit.
C: I also have a weird phenomenon that happens sometimes where I try to do something rewarding, but it feels like the payoff doesn’t happen soon enough, so I want to quit whatever activity because I’m too impatient to wait for the feel-good stuff to happen in my brain. Even if it’s something really stupid like watching a show. Like, I’m so impatient that I can’t wait like 5-10 minutes for the good stuff to start??? That’s what it is. The addiction/instant gratification impatience issue. The constantly dopaminergic activities that lead to such impatience that I’m not even willing to sit down and watch a show? I mean, it probably makes a difference that I’m trying to watch something other than sailor moon…maybe that’s it. Starting an entire new show feels like an overly big undertaking…
Justin: It’s complicated. Lots of people get “new show anxiety.” I think about it too; like what is it really. I think what it is, is when you’re pushed to your limits and you feel like you need a show to make you feel better, you aren’t sure you could handle the disappointment, so you place too much importance into something as trivial as a show. And so the problem isn’t the show or you exactly, but the fact that you are at rock bottom and need to get out so that the show doesn’t need to rescue you anymore.
C: Wow. I never thought about it that way.
Justin: You might find with a serotonin bump from something like 5-HTP that actually the show is less important to you. Maybe you even find it boring. Rather than disappointing, you feel like bored and compelled to do something else.
C: So you think it’s because I’m seeking higher ticket dopaminergic activities, not that I’m necessarily at rock bottom?
Justin: I’m saying it probably isn’t dopamine necessarily. It might be serotonin. If you don’t feel like everything is going to be alright, then you overthink everything and worry, and it causes procrastination and stuckness. Starting a new thing becomes scary instead of fun. No matter how trivial. These are just my own thoughts on the matter. I am not repeating anything I’ve heard from like neuroscience for example. Just trying to put the pieces together of the human experience.
C: It’s so complicated because it’s not like one of them stops existing if you only think about the other.
Neurotransmitters are always both a factor in whatever you’re experiencing. I’m saying it’s hard to objectively say that one is more of an issue than the other.
Justin: Yeah. Serotonin and Dopamine are interesting but the only reason we talk about them is because of isolated scientific experiments. Parking lot science. We measure what we can measure and overstate the importance of what we can measure. But fail to see reality for how it actually is. We think of Serotonin and Dopamine as two seperate things because we have given them names and we then try to interpret the world through these two lenses, forgetting entirely that the world is the real lense.
C: The human body that we live in is the lense.
Justin: Which is why I say that your subjective experience is the only one that matters. Which is why you need to explore your interests and explore what you find meaningful. Only you get to decide what is meaningful to you. In fact, you don’t even decide, it shows up organically like a message from God. It probably shouldn’t be ignored.
Justin: There is no measurable distinction from God speaking to you vs spontaneously getting an idea or urge that just comes to you. If you marry that with the idea that god is love and forgiveness then following your interests is love also.
Justin: And if you marry the idea that god is love and forgiveness and safety (serotonin) then you can start to select shows based on whether they interest you, not whether they will rescue you. The act of sitting down to explore a show you like should be pure love, not fear.
Justin: And as a side note, I think that is the vibration of the universe that Eckhart Tolle claims to have seen; Pure love radiating from the trees and objects. It’s actually about arriving at this feeling of love that changes how you relate to things.
Justin: Ok I’m done blabbing.