Addiction & Pleasure

[ribbin]

On June 23rd, 2011, I had a major aha moment. We've all had them- those moments where something about the world suddenly makes sense, and we see things in a new light. Most of the time, these are pretty minor- we figure out that salt brings out flavors, and that's why it's tasty on steak, chocolate, butter and avocados. Sometimes, they're pretty

Comments

[whetherwoman]

http://750words.com/ does this with writing. sparkpeople.com does it with diet and exercise, although it might be more accurate to say they do it for changing to a healthier lifestyle--you get points for eating healthily, but also for blogging about your choices, encouraging other people, reading articles, etc, all things that have more long-term impact than what you eat on a given day.

I think there are various websites that do this for chores too. It's amazing what we'll do for arbitrary points. Anything to trick ourselves into that dopamine release...

[krinndnz]

That's totally fascinating to me, and makes me want to go further with my own efforts in that direction. Right now, for all its problematics, Starbucks is a good writing environment for me because it's predictably comfortable and I can feed myself positive Skinner-box stuff like that. Good luck to you with your own experiment!

[josenritno]

That is a very interesting set of ideas. I'm not sure I'm upbeat enough to addict myself to things I hate (or don't love enough to do regularly) but I see the merit of the concept.

The dopamine rush thing makes many actions interesting. I think it can go in the opposite direction too. I think you can addict yourself to bad habits as well. Stubbornness, I think can be totally dopamine driven. Sometimes, for instance, when I get mad about stupid, inane things, Louisa will tell me to not get mad. When that happens, I sometimes say "No! I'm going to remain mad, it's my right to be mad!" Then I get a little squirt of dopamine because I won the argument and remained mad. I'm still mad, but I feel a little bit good anyway. So my stubbornness is supported by dopamine because I have control over the situation.

By the way- your writing is getting to be very good. I enjoy reading your posts partially because I like your writing.