Author: brianjohnson

It occurs to me that much of my idealism may come from my religious upbringing.

I remember learning about the Bible in school when I was little. And hearing about “turning the other cheek” and being taught about Jesus and other figures and how they always sacrificed themselves.

Those stories resonated with me.

Specifically, it was the idea of self-sacrifice. That you could ignore your own needs and desires and, ultimately, deny your own humanity and limitations.

It’s not really a realistic way to live, I now know. It doesn’t mean we can’t sacrifice ourselves to an extent and, of course, help others.

But the drowning man can’t help anyone but himself.

There’s a difference between denying your own wants, and denying your own needs.

The distinction was never clear as a kid, and arguably is never made within religious teachings.

Perhaps most pernicious is how these quixotic ideals can be applied to other areas.

If I should strive to a superhuman level of self-sacrifice, and if this is presented as a realistic option, then I should also be able to completely control myself in all areas and reach similarly superhuman levels of self-control and discipline.

I don’t think it even really occurred to me until the last few years how completely unrealistic and absurd it is.

Here’s a good example to illustrate this.

When I was young, I always just thought, “mind over matter”. I believed that, as an intelligent human, we can attain complete control over our own feelings and actions.

To the extent that I remember thinking (before I started drinking), that I would easily be able to just blast shots of liquor without any reaction at all, because I would have no trouble suppressing my reaction to what is, after all, only a flavor, right?

Because of my… I don’t know, superior self-control?

This is the kind of thing that, if I could speak to my younger self, I would mock relentlessly. Because it’s stupid.

Granted, I didn’t know at the time just how powerful the biological response is when consuming what is quite literally poison.

But the important thing here is how… I almost said naïve, but really arrogant or possibly just ignorant I was.

I truly thought I could just completely control myself.

If I heard a young person say something along those same lines, I would laugh. And I would do anything I could to see that person consume their first shot. Hopefully tequila or something.

And I would laugh hysterically when they almost puke.

Obviously, there are examples of people doing some pretty super-human things. The monk who sat placidly after setting himself on fire comes to mind. The Ice Man. And many others.

But the fact remains: probably something like 90% of our behavior is guided almost completely by our biology and hormones, just like any other mammal.

We aren’t the hyper-intelligent beings we believe ourselves to be, constantly running calculations and making brilliant decisions that set us apart from the apes.

We’re hungry and we eat. We’re tired and we sleep. We feel social and we seek out company.

Arguably, for the majority of people, higher-level thinking dictates almost nothing in their lives.

So yes, I’d say it’s important to strive for improvement (as almost every post in this blog demonstrates), but your goals should be pragmatic.

Idealism is inherently problematic, because we are human. We are not and can never be perfect in any way.

To deny the physiological processes that guide us every moment of every day is to deny your true nature.

And without accepting your true nature, you can’t effectively improve.

This is a hard one to fully articulate. But essentially, I think that the mix of chemicals we have in our brain at certain points can be interpreted as totally different emotions.

Recently I’ve learned a lot more about dopamine and serotonin and other neurotransmitters and have come to understand them very differently.

The specific points I want to make here rely on related aspects of the two chemicals. Dopamine pushes you to act to improve your future. In general, it makes you think about the future and act now.

Serotonin, on the other hand, makes you think about the present. In general, it is produced as a reward for doing things well.

If I’m super productive all day and I get a ton done, I might be exhausted at the end of the day. But I generally feel contentment, or even happiness.

The dopamine is gone and I no longer feel like doing anything that requires effort. But since I was productive all day, I am content.

I might also be exhausted at the end of an unproductive day, however. And the feeling of having no energy to do anything while also having not gotten anything done all day is one that I generally interpret as sadness or anxiety.

So what is the difference between the two?

I think either way, you’re out of your dopamine. You don’t have the “energy” to get things done.

It’s possible that after a successful day, you receive more serotonin, and that’s what makes you content.

I would argue, though, that it’s possible the mix of neurotransmitters in your brain is exactly the same. That the only difference in terms of how you feel is simply due to differences in how you interpret how you are feeling.

They say that tons of emotions are just different interpretations of the same things. Nervousness and excitement, for example, are physiologically almost identical.

Are happiness and sadness really so different?

I think both are typically associated with a lack of energy. We think of happy people as having energy and being productive, which is likely true, but I suspect that while they are being productive, they would not describe their top emotion as “happy”.

Happiness is typically felt when you are at rest.

As is sadness. Which might explain people that seem like they are happy and positive and productive, but then describe feeling incredible sadness when they finish their day or when they are alone and resting.

Clearly there is more to it than this, and the exact combination of neurotransmitters and other chemicals in our brain that leads to different emotions is quite complicated.

But I just think it’s an interesting idea that how we interpret our emotions can make a huge difference.

For myself, I remember there was a long time where I had a lot of bad debt and I just couldn’t seem to shake it. Every time I was at rest and exhausted, I remember feeling this anxiety about it. Like, “I can’t rest because I have this huge problem”.

I can’t help but think that I still feel exactly the same way, but on days where I’ve been productive at least, I now interpret that feeling as contentment or even happiness. It’s like, “yeah, I did well today, and now I can just relax”.

Maybe it’s all part of how we, as humans, reward ourselves for a job well done, and punish ourselves for doing badly.

In my case, though, maybe I could reframe this. Maybe at the end of the day, I can focus on how I’ve been doing overall. Maybe I wasn’t productive that day, but if I can at least say that I’m on the right track in general, maybe I can always feel good.

We’ll find out!