Part 2—Connecting the Dots ( “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE)
As a physiologist I feel compelled to expand a bit on the physiology here, at least to a reasonable depth. We need keep in mind that our brain is basically a chemical computer. There is electronic activity in neurons, but neurons communicate with each other, and other organs, via chemicals called neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can stimulate, inhibit, block neurotransmitter production, block neurotransmitter re-uptake, or potentiate a response to a given neurotransmitter. Since there are millions of neurons involved it gets rather complicated. The object here will be to only go in depth enough to make some basic sense of what is going on here. The three areas of the brain which are the major players here are the Pleasure Center, the Prefrontal lobe of the cerebral Cortex (inhibits inappropriate behavior) and the Ventral Tegmental Area in the Brain stem (creates craving).
Activation of the pleasure center gives us pleasure. However, over-stimulation of the pleasure center triggers cells in the pleasure center to produce molecules called CREB molecules, which then trigger the production of dynorphin which inhibits stimulation of the pleasure center (nucleus accumbens). Thus it now takes more stimuli to activate the pleasure center. This is to say the pleasure center is building up tolerance to any stimuli. Many drugs of abuse also stimulate the pleasure center and do so with greater intensity than non drug stimuli. So when the pleasure center builds up tolerance as described, then a person must take more of the drug to get the same amount of pleasure. BUT, the normal activities in our lives which produce pleasure now become less effective since the pleasure center has developed tolerance. This means the drug becomes even more important as the way to stimulate the pleasure center, and the usual activities in life, which produce pleasure, lose ground.
From here it all goes downward even more. When pleasure comes from unexpected sources, like taking a recreational drug, the ventral tegmental area in the brain stem is activated. These neurons release dopamine. Increased dopamine levels are found in all addictions, no matter what the addiction is. Unlike the pleasure center, the ventral tegmental area becomes sensitized to the stimulation in question, not desensitized. So now more dopamine will be produced. It is the level of dopamine in the brain which produces the craving for some substance or some activity. Craving is not liking. Ironically, since the pleasure center has become desensitized to the drug, we end up liking the drug less while at the same time our craving for the drug rises even more. Not good.
To top off all of this, many, or all, of the recreational drugs of abuse are essentially toxic to the prefrontal lobe and produce functional and/or structural changes in the prefrontal cortex. Since the prefrontal cortex acts to inhibit inappropriate behavior, there is less inhibition of such behavior. Inappropriate behavior is often exhibited when under heavy drug levels or any other addiction.
The overall message here is this: be careful about overstimulating the pleasure center. Enough pleasure is really enough. Too much pleasure too often kicks off all the sequences above.
What can we deduce from this musing?:
1. Be careful about overstimulating our pleasure center with activities, or drugs, which will do nothing to improve our quality of life (our contentment levels).
2. We need understand that craving something is different from liking something.
3. Don’t give yourself every ‘best’ thing at once and hope your parents didn’t do this for you. We get the most contentment from more slowly achieving desired things or outcomes. When someone is like 22 years of age and inherits a lot of money, chances are, strangely enough, that this inheritance will significantly limit the level of contentment achievable in life. When you are 22 and one way or another quickly attain many ‘best’ things in life, what is there for an encore? It just might turn out to be drugs, sex, titles, power—all of which develop dopamine induced craving. Donald Trump is probably a good example of dopamine induced cravings. He has little sense of reality and a whole lot of craving for wealth, power, titles, control, and so on, on and on. Maybe he is Hitler all over again. It is probably not possible to have a thoughtful discussion with him on anything. Dopamine, not reason, is driving everything he says or does.
4. No society should allow any cabal of citizens to exist gated off away from access to good schools, good health care, good opportunities for work, decent pay for good work, a safe neighborhood, adequate vacation time, adequate pensions, and so on. The more any society blocks personal progress for any of it’s citizens the more certainty that society will end up dealing with drug abuse, crimes, inappropriate behaviors, addictions to electronic gadget amusements, overeating, irresponsible reproduction, and of course, overactive rage centers. Our overall societal situation in America right now is seething with anger and lack of level playing fields. Individually, we all need learn when enough is enough, and—while recognizing our responsibilities to our offspring in their formative years, we play with everyone’s future when we do not collectively, through government of some sort, enforce the golden rule as the basis for ethics in our society. In the end any ‘family values’ that protects the future for our offspring is a “family values” which includes all members of our species and is governed by the Golden Rule. Our special feelings for our offspring need a broader perspective than the immediate needs of adult offspring.
We are only beginning to tie Central Nervous System function to ‘enough is enough’, to the road to personal contentment, and to the proper role of ethics in the human species. Ethics, as an inherited trait, is relatively new in the evolutionary process. That it is rudimentary and imperfect right now is evident enough. While I personally would not give much hope for the immediate future, setbacks in the evolutionary process are not new to the process.
For years we have depended on anecdotal cautions about how we live our lives which had no solid physiological basis. Statements like “don’t get too much in life too soon”, or “don’t spend so much time doing ‘this or that’.” And we would often retort: “Why not? It’s not hurting anything, and it gives me pleasure.” I mean like, why would we want to deny anyone some pleasure? Now that we understand much more about how the body actually deals with pleasure, we find some of these cautions have a real scientific basis.
What is being suggested in this musing, based on the physiology involved, is that we learn, preferably in our formative years, that some pleasures are more important to us, in the long run, than others. Some pleasures lead to contentment, other pleasures lead to compulsive behaviors, and compulsive behaviors cannot lead to contentment—just an uncontrollable addictive and destructive pattern of behavior. How destructive? It varies from mild to severe to personal tragedies of various ilk. Furthermore, some people are more genetically susceptible to compulsive behaviors than others. On top of that, environmental circumstances push many people to the kind of pleasures which just help them get mental relief from stress or provide mental highs through drugs or electronic gadgets.
So what kind of pleasures lead to personal contentment as opposed to simply blind alley compulsive behaviors? The broadest categories here are understanding things about ourselves, others diverse from ourselves, our own bodies, how gadgets work, family relationships, developing skills which enable us to gain economic independence, helping others in times of need, learning how to live a healthful life, the right amount of sexual satisfaction, and so on. These are examples, and not a complete list.
It is important to realize that contentment cannot be given to us, we have to earn it ourselves. Sometimes, in an attempt to make someone happy we give them money or titles or power or whatever —but for them to get any real contentment they have to earn these things themselves. And that is the reason parents really do need to let go after their offspring become adults. For example, if a parent would like an offspring to eventually take over the family company, don’t make that expected at all—letting it be an assumed eventuality is a huge mistake. Let them go out and prove themselves elsewhere, and when they have done that, only then bring them into your own business. Are there exceptions? I suppose there are but it then becomes a gamble, plain and simple. And that gamble could be the end of the family business. Your son or daughter may have been used to living in an affluent neighborhood in an expensive house. Now, at the start of their productive years, they are living in a studio apartment somewhere and it breaks your heart. Should you spring for a downpayment on a nice house or co-sign for a loan etc?. What for? For sure they would like that, BUT now you have reduced their motivation to earn their own money for that goal, and they may begin to use drugs, sex, partying, computer games, face book, etc as additional pleasures to an already comfortable life. The more handed to us at a younger age the more likely it is that we, being young and full of energy, will gravitate to the kind of pleasures high risk for compulsive behaviors. If parents do right they don’t become the enabler by simply handing them a ‘good life’ unearned, leaving them free to chase after those pleasures which can lead to compulsive behaviors.
The lives of the young and affluent (family affluence) have different risks compared to those children born into a ghetto. If these ghetto kids do not have good schools, good health care, safe communities, and job opportunities we have exponentially raised the likelihood their life pursuits will end up chasing drugs, crime, sex, computer games, face book, cell phone conversations and so on— for pleasure, or relief of frustration, none of which is going to lead them to any personal contentment.
There ought to be mandatory courses in high school about life choices and their consequences. Young people need to understand what kind of pleasures can lead to personal contentment and what kind of pleasures can become compulsive behaviors with no contentment. On top of that, every high school student needs to understand fully what is meant by “enough is enough”. When ‘enough is enough’ is understood, there is nothing wrong with money, titles, sex, food, internet games, cell phone communication, gambling, drinking, marijuana, buying things, fictional movies, and so on. These are perks, meaningful perks which can get out of control and make personal contentment elusive or minimal. There is a big difference between a perk and a daily dependent artificial stimulation of our pleasure center.
To become excessive about any of the above is to jeopardize the real meaningful aspects of our lives. And as we understand from the science explained earlier in this musing, all of these things can become real cravings even though we actually are liking them less. When craving takes over (the ventral tegmental area) and if the pre frontal lobe becomes functionally damaged, no amount of the compulsive behavior in question will bring satisfaction and often is accompanied by inappropriate behaviors. Then our world begins to unravel in a most embarrassing and tragic way. People who have ‘everything’ (too fast or unearned) may behave like they have no genuine contentment, and those with nothing have given up, have nothing to lose, and all they have are compulsive behaviors which give them temporary illusionary relief. Then, for these poor souls, our society often tells them: “just give up these temporary illusionary reliefs or we will put you in jail”. They are already in “jail” and were so, in many cases, throughout their entire formative years.
How best to wrap this up? The future for our offspring, which the best of parents state is very important to them, is really dependent on to what extent the Golden Rule is the ethical basis for that society. It is the evolutionary process which is the important aspect of evolutionary Time. It is not any individuals of any species, let alone the individuals of our own family, who register any significant importance. The laws which govern the evolutionary process were created by God, Whom we may know exists from all the presents which surround us in nature—but we can know nothing of substance about God. Why we can’t even comprehend how something could come from nothing, which of course must have been possible back in the beginning of Time, if there was a beginning.
We are constantly told our national security depends on events in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on—and on and on until we end up invading one country after another till finally, these last decades, we have been at perpetual war—declared or not declared. Well, from all of the above in this musing we can understand that letting millions of children across our country have inferior schools (including inferior teachers), inferior health care, unsafe communities in which to live ((right smack in the middle of our War on Drugs), inferior job opportunities (often no job opportunities), inferior wages, and any other things which deny them a level playing field in life——all of these things are a real threat to our national security. It doesn’t stop with kids——when 43% of our citizens don’t earn enough to qualify to pay federal income taxes, then we have a sick prognosis for the future, just as we do when 2-5% of our citizens own 90% of our wealth. Such a society is going to implode in the short run, not the long run, and when it does the “have not’s”, with nothing to lose, are going to reap vengeance on the “Have’s”, with everything to lose and no way to protect their material bounty. I suppose we could say here that unless we can make the playing fields more level for all citizens of a society, then the long term future is not just potentially bleak, but history teaches us it is always bleak. We need to do the best we can as parents so that our offspring, after their formative years, are best prepared to succeed on level playing fields, and if, for varied reasons, they simply don’t have what it takes to succeed on their own, then the responsibility falls on the more successful in society—collectively through government—to provide assistance so that the less fortunate too can achieve some personal contentment in life. In reality, life at it’s best, is not fair, but at it’s best, a just society can always be merciful. Thus, even with the best parenting, some offspring may not flourish for genetic, environmental, lack of good luck, health issues, accidents, etc. but the neat thing, when The Golden Rule is the basis for ethics, is that these unfortunate offspring are protected collectively by the more fortunate. The parents did the best they could. Sometimes that is not good enough. But the responsibility for help past the formative years falls on everyone collectively. Some times the parents did a terrible job. That is why, during the formative years, such children may need level playing fields to succeed.
Having run out of angles to tie all things together here, I will close with what is my all-time favorite passage, although I can’t seem to find who really originated it.
“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that, and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.”
This philosophy, coupled with the Golden Rule, generates the best atmosphere to maximize the contentment level for the maximum number of people. The notion that God created the laws which govern the evolutionary process, and then nullifies these laws on behalf of any single member of any species to protect them, or any ‘sect’ of them, from misfortune—is a tad absurd—except, of course, in football games when prayer circles are very effective. Sure they are. Maybe God is like a good parent who feels sad when unfortunate things happen to any of his ‘creations’.
In an evolutionary process not driven by ‘good’ vs ‘evil’ or ‘God’ vs the ‘Devil’, but by advantages vs disadvantages, just now much contentment can be achieved by the disadvantaged least fortunate in our own species is determined by the extent to which the society lives by the Golden Rule. For example, there is no reason why any person needs to starve to death so long as the more fortunate collectively see to it they don’t starve. There is no reason the less fortunate need die from inadequate health care so long as the more fortunate collectively, via the Golden Rule and some form of government, share their excess good fortune to ensure all citizens get good health care. God, after all is said and done, has indeed provided us with the means to minimize misfortune and maximize contentment. But it is our duty, collectively, to maximize content for the greatest number of people. It is like when a child complains their room is a mess, and a parent says “well, then go clean it up.” When we complain that our nation or world or community is a mess, then praying for God to clean it up is fruitless. We, collectively, need to clean it up. Whether we do it ourselves, or rely on the evolutionary process to clean it up, evolution eventually moves forward, like it has for billions of years now. Finally, once again, ad nausea—nothing in this musing matters much if the human species cannot effectuate what we already know: overpopulation is disastrous for any species—no exception. We have already overpopulated the globe, and if we can’t find a way to enforce responsible human reproduction on a global scale, then Mother Nature will do it for us, no matter how much chaos required for such an evolutionary correction. Don’t forget, “WE go, TIME stays.” That’s the reality.
End of Part 2 The next part contains some insightful quotations which relate to these topics.
