The Eskimos faced a significant challenge with wolves, and they devised an ingenious solution. Unfortunately, people in the 21st century can exhibit wolf-like behavior, and I will explain why shortly.
Today, we complete our exploration of crucial insights from Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance In The Age of Indulgence. As I mentioned to you, this book is so informative that I have recently read it again. The book is practical and filled with insightful stories that help us understand the issues people encounter in our modern world, while also offering hope.
I’ve condensed the key points into six essential takeaways:
- Our bodies secrete a chemical called dopamine, which makes us feel good when we set a goal and achieve it.
- While dopamine can reinforce good behavior, it can also encourage bad behavior and even lead to addictions.
- “[T]he brain processes pleasure and pain in the same place. Further, pleasure and pain work like opposite sides of a balance.”
- When our brains are working well, pleasure and pain work in harmony.
- Left unchecked, dopamine can fan the flames of desire, causing us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If we are not careful, this can disrupt our balance and easily tip us into addiction.
- Addiction is “…the continued and compulsive consumption of a substance or behavior… despite its harm to self and/or others.”
For the final takeaway, let me share with you an essential understanding that Lembke presents regarding life in today’s fast-paced, technologically-driven world.
Humans are designed and constructed (evolutionary biologists would say “evolved”) to live in times of scarcity. Without pleasure, we would not eat, drink, or reproduce. Conversely, without pain, we would not protect ourselves from injury and death. “But, with less threat of survival, and more opportunities to seek pleasure, our coordinates have changed…. With repeated pleasures, we become endless drivers, never satisfied with what we have, and always looking for more.” This relentless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain has “transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance.”
The issue is that we are not well-equipped to live in times of abundance. This misalignment has contributed to increased addiction to alcohol and drugs over the past several decades. Here are some data points to highlight this crisis:
- 50% more Americans began drinking alcohol in the 1990s
- High-risk drinking rose 15 percent during that decade
- While cigarette smoking has decreased, vaping has increased exponentially, releasing more nicotine into a person’s system at a faster rate.
- Today’s cannabis is 5 to 10 times more potent than that of the 1960s and is available in cookies, cake (called brownies), gummy bears, blueberries, etc.
- Access to unhealthy food has expanded, and, except for sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, there are now more people worldwide who are obese than underweight.
- “[T]he world offers a full complement of digital drugs that did not exist before,” including online pornography, gambling, and video games.
As Lembke states, “[T]he act of consumption itself has become a drug.” The most tragic example of humanity’s inability to manage its inner life in an age of relative abundance is the alarming number of wealthy individuals, often women, who have starved themselves to death due to eating disorders. In contrast, a heartbreaking number of poor people have died as a result of diseases directly linked to overeating.
Never before in the history of the world have so many rich people died of starvation, while so many poor people have died of gluttony.
Legend has it that the Eskimos had a unique way to address their problems with wolves. They would take a long knife, sharpened on both sides, and wrap whale blubber around its blade, securing it with a cord. They would then go onto the ice, dig a hole, and place the bone handle into the water, allowing it to freeze in that position, with the knife pointing up.
This formed a deadly trap, presenting a tasty meal for some unsuspecting wolf who smelled the blubber and came running. Once the wolf arrived and began to gnaw on the blubber, its tongue and mouth would become numb from the cold, impairing its ability to feel the sharp blade inside. As the wolf continued to chew through the blubber, it would inadvertently cut its tongue and mouth, causing blood to flow. Smelling the blood, the wolf would grow hungrier and chew more forcefully on the knife. He would literally feed on himself until he bled to death.
As sickening as this story is, it illustrates for us what can happen in a culture with so much abundance that even the poor can systematically kill themselves through their lifestyle. In the 21st century, Americans are, symbolically speaking, feeding on themselves to death.
In conclusion, remember:
- Pleasure can help to sustain us through essential activities like eating, drinking, reproducing, and working.
- Pain can guide us to protect us from harm.
Both must be managed effectively.
As a result of reading this book, two things have happened in my life:
- I thank God for the pain I endure in life because I now know I live in a world that tries to convince me to take it away, which would prove disastrous. I need pain for brain balance, and I welcome any adversity I face. I can rest assured that, at least for that day, I’ve got that need covered.
- I remind myself that pleasure has its limits. It’s summer, and you can give a thirsty man a water bottle from which to drink. You can give him two. Or three. But at some point, his thirst will be quenched. After that point, any additional water will only result in overflow. Much of my pursuit of pleasure is, in fact, seeking to add to the overflow. I have one house. At one time, Elon Musk may have owned six more, yet he was not six times happier than I was. The difference in pleasure between us was negligible, if it existed at all.
Almost two hundred years ago, Texans cried, “Remember the Alamo!”
Today, I would encourage us all to “Remember the Eskimo!”
Mark
Dr. Mark Edge
The WorkEdge Company
Telephone: 903-245-7851
Email: workedgetexas@gmail.com
Website: www.workedgetexas.com
Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World