Chapter 2: Crack Units of Dopamine

 

In my last post I talked of bombs. Bombs raining down everywhere. I talked of the futility of believing you could control the uncontrollable. That those bombs would get you sooner or later. But maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to always be on the receiving end. Maybe we are not so alone as we think… Maybe we can call in our own artillery.

You see, we have our own weapons: a smile, an unexpected gift to give, a hug, a timely message of support or just the unleashing of the most powerful battery of words ever, such as: “thank you”; “please”; “I am sorry”; “I forgive you”; “what can I do for you”; “you’re great”; “I love you”. All these are free of charge, easy to manufacture and readilly available in order to set off an unstoppable chain of peak dopamine explosions. These words have the power to light up the world around us. These really are game changers.

Dopamine, the hormone/neurotransmitter is well known across popular culture and the media, as the main chemical underlying the experience  pleasure (though current opinion in pharmacology is that dopamine instead confers motivational salience). But little is said of our ability to manufacture and distribute this amazing drug, it’s centrality for collective well-being; or that it is free at the point of use and available to all.

We all have all this amazing firepower in our grasp. We have all these self-loading automatic rifles spreading dopamine shots everywhere. And we can do all this good for free!. With satellite technology we can even launch dopamine rockets across the world. Imagine a world with all these dopamine guns firing. Sounds sexy, right?

We should, therefore, set up crack units of dopamine marines: shooting indiscriminately because the more we shoot, the more we will be shot by others, boosting our own levels of dopamine ammunition. We can light up the skies with our smiles, blow away all types of obstacles with a timely piece of praise and gratitude – when the dopamine marines arrive there are no defences in the world which can resist us.