Stomping in the Snow: Dopamine Slavehood and Unconscious Footprints
How our selfish motives destroy others, the world around us, and ourselves.
I finished my last class for the day. It was 6:30pm in Ann Arbor and the winter skies looked like the color black was in an unhappy marriage with purple. All around me, artificial lights flopped out of monochromatically gray campus buildings that seemed to be devoured by the awkwardly depressing energy those two colors bore. Black and purple turned to me and asked who was more right. I thought about my parents and countless other parents. I thought about how many times I was forced into a position that I didn't want to be in, with people I didn't want to be around, then zipped up my coat and quietly evaded.
The unwelcoming winds of unfinished business laughed boisterously in all directions like a dumb beast, and followed me across the street to the bus stop, under a lonely, dim streetlight. I stifled my groans and channeled them through a deep exhale. 20 years of winters and I’m still not used to this. I just hate it, so cold, dark, depressing, and lifeless. Google Maps blessed me with the only good news I got all day: ‘Three minutes remaining’ for the 5A bus to take me home towards Ypsilanti where I could finally be warm again, and away from dysfunctional situations.
I looked around for something that wasn’t impressively ugly or gray to distract me for those three minutes — probably so that my mind wouldn’t have a chance to wander back into the many troubles I so often fled from. I could’ve predicted how things would’ve ended up if it did; a subtle voice eventually proposing a logical argument within the span of a few milliseconds about how it’s “not right” to just walk away from the color black and purple like that. Then it would convince me to “do the right thing”, which is, of course, not what anyone wants to do. I peered toward the direction where the bus would be coming from with a silently desperate plea for time to spin a bit faster so that my will wouldn’t be subsumed by the fear of a sudden rational proposition. Another situation I would be forced into that I, again, don’t want to be bothered by. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a fresh ground of snow lying untouched beneath the now dying streetlight. Finally, something to fixate on. The way it glimmered without moving was almost diamond-like. How could something so beautiful be out here in a place so cold, so dark, so barren, and so miserably unamusing?
But more importantly, where the hell was this bus? If you know anything about Ann Arbor buses, it’s that they’re renowned for being harrowingly late. And if you don’t, a wonderfully informative video made by University students depicts a number of activities one can engage in while waiting for their bus, including but not limited to; jump roping, playing a game of chess, and having a cookout. None of which were feasible options in the midst of a biting Midwest winter. After about thirty seconds, the once newly sparkling white sheet now seemed mundane, and I decided to go stomping in the snow. Beneath my two-and-a-half-inch black palladium treads came a wonderful sensation of softness — like slowly stepping on a muffin. The euphoric feeling only lasted for an instant before my winter boots packed the snow into a more solid, less luxurious form and left the white grounds with a big muddy footprint. I continued stomping. Soon, there were no more fresh patches of snow to momentarily satisfy me with a muffin-like sensoria. I took a step back, and what was once a gleaming surface, now appeared no different than the snow pushed to the side of the road by (also usually late) snow trucks — trampled, discarded, gray, and ugly. Then, finally, the bus arrived.
“Man’s lack of patience and forethought provokes him to engage in behaviors that fortify his self-interest, even at the expense of degrading those around him.”
All within the span of three minutes, I found myself bored, pessimistic, and self-centered. My primary objective became avoiding a subjective kind of discomfort — namely evading the pains of waiting and thinking. For three minutes that is. Not surprisingly, each of the aforementioned vices presupposes a form of tyranny in the larger sense of the word. Man’s lack of patience and forethought provokes him to engage in behaviors that fortify his self-interest, even at the expense of degrading those around him(or in this case other things).
He seeks to feed himself in abundance while his counterpart starves. He seeks to sever bonds with his own family and close friends (eventually leading to a separation from everyone and everything), to avoid any measure of what he deems could be “undeserving harm”, which, from his perspective, is all and any kind of harm. He commences wars against innocent lives so that he may prosper. He seeks convenience at the expense of environmental devastation. Fame at the expense of debasing others. And to adorn himself with the fleeting beauty of self-satisfaction at the expense of uglifying the world and those around him.
Such a path to selfish satisfaction gives rise to an inevitable way of being that later is known to be the hallmark of humanity by a significant number of Neo-Freudian schools of Psychology. That is, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. This theology is not antithetical to the aforementioned examples, rather such a formula coincides with each of them and may even be their foundations. When man follows his own whims and desires, he inevitably finds himself in the midst of self-centeredness—a precursor to the successful ploys of both consumerism and capitalism. He is frantic about his own needs until his entire life, choices, behaviors, etc., revolve around nothing more than himself.
Ironically, these individualistic tendencies that seek to serve the self, are (not surprisingly) correlated with the inevitable doom of the self, along with the destruction of everything it interacts with. The selfish tendency then becomes a living extension and even usurps its host (who presumptuously mistook it as a patron or a guide away from “pain”). The result is a manifestation of selfishness in each of the individual’s everyday engagements, whether that be buying, selling, speaking, listening, studying, giving, taking, building, etc. The motive for every facet of his life becomes himself. The ends become himself.
Psychologists like Sigmund Freud propose the human being to be just that. A simp(le) and selfish organism that runs toward pleasure — an extra boost of dopamine, be it less than a fraction of a second — and away from pain, be it what allows him to stand at a bus stop, unmoved, for three minutes. But is our identity, nothing more than a senseless, emotionless, thoughtless, piece of thing that just so happens to move and want? Aren’t we much more than that?
But what’s the big deal, really? You’re waiting for the bus and you go stomping in the snow, so what? There is nothing wrong with the action of stomping in the snow, rather, why it occurs.
Take for instance these scenarios:
“What’s the big deal? Just let them eat, they’re hungry and don’t have anything better to do.” Well, why is it that we are not looking for something better to do rather than dilapidating our bodies with — quite frankly — sugar and poison in an attempt to bottleneck our potential solely towards the self-satisfying activity of eating? The action of eating isn’t a problem, but rather why and when we do it. “What’s the big deal? they’re just buying clothes to destress, they have to put themselves first.” Well, why is it that retail therapy is the only way to cope? Why can’t we sit with ourselves or with another trained person we trust and assess who we are and what frustrates us? Why can’t we communicate ourselves with another human being and nourish the natural process of healing through intimate sharing instead of buying $5 tops from stores that proliferate child slavery along with our visceral problems — self-deemed unsolvable because of our lack of confrontation? Again, nothing wrong with buying clothes, but rather why and when the action occurs. “What’s the big deal if they want to watch porn? They’re not hurting anybody.” Why are we looking at what is not being done to others at the expense of what is being done (and wronged) within the self of the onlooker(s)? “As long as they don’t hurt anybody, they can do whatever they want.” What if they’re hurting themselves? What if they’re numbing themselves and ruining their relationships, social cohesion capacities, problem-solving abilities, memory, self-esteem, and any trace of optimism in exchange for seeing a woman be violently exploited and violated?
“The individualistic tendency to ‘leave them be’ if nobody is being hurt” ironically undermines the very individual that the concept seeks to ‘liberate’, while facilitating moral license to sell themselves to corporations in an attempt to run towards pleasure (food, retail therapy, porn — often mistaken as forms of self-care) and away from a ‘pain’ that is reality.”
Postmodernity kindles a way of thinking that doesn’t see much wrong with the aforementioned scenarios. Instead, it posits a strictly empirical and surface-level “analysis” of actions without considering visceral outcomes or effects. The actions of eating, shopping, watching porn, etc are not bad things and do not hurt anyone, thus they are good to do whenever and are seen as forms of “self-care” at times. Other times, they’re turned into jokes on social media; “omg I need to not blow my next paycheck on clothes” is almost too relatable now, and facetiously narrated with an implication to not take things too seriously, instead, to simply “enjoy” yourself because “you deserve it”.
The individualistic tendency to ‘leave them be if nobody is being hurt” ironically undermines the very individual that the concept seeks to ‘liberate’, while facilitating moral license to sell themselves to corporations in an attempt to run towards pleasure (food, retail therapy, porn — often mistaken as forms of self-care) and away from a ‘pain’ that is reality.” The even more ironic thing about such a concept (or in some cases a lifestyle) is that experiencing these pleasures only lasts for a moment, like the muffin-like sensoria of stomping in the snow.
Take another example:
Consider the frequent activity of buying something online. It’s enticing to track the shipment and it’s even more exciting when you see it at your doorstep upon coming home from your last class of the day and waiting in the cold for an oft-late bus. It may even be more enticing to open it up and try it on if it’s a garment or use it if it’s an appliance. But, after a few wears and uses, that dopamine rush is likely gone, and yet again, another package (or dopamine rush) is desired.
Perhaps it is not the package we want, but a feeling of euphoria that we feel when we shop, track, receive, open, and use something for the first time. Dopamine hits culminate precisely at these points of initiation. But only for a moment, after which it disappears. And there we are again, in a cringy confrontation with the dysfunction of our depression, anxiety, boredom, pessimism, and search for selfish self-fulfillment that yet again takes our minds off of the real underlying problems we purposefully lack to confront. We search for fulfillment away from the void within our depths, and by proxy, any trace of serious work distills into a frivolous effort to upkeep another short-lived reality of “I’m fine, everything is fine, see?”. We need to escape the pains of ourselves under the auspices of fleeting pleasures that ironically widen such a void. These attempts appear to culminate into a [lifelong] cycle of escaping reality and by proxy, our deepest truths. We step outside of the real world and into an ephemeral paradise that we frantically scramble to maintain and uphold. Whoever (or whatever) threatens such an edifice is an enemy and desires “harm/pain” for us and our dream of a perfect little place that has no real existence. At least, not in this life.
“We. . .want something. . .greater than the fulfillment of our wants.”
While we desire pleasure and are aversive to pain, there is something, quite opposing, within us that finds such a self-centered way of living, thinking, and being quite unsettling. We are not fully content, even if we get everything we want. The very fact that the dopamine rush we crave is extremely short-lived, and after which we feel empty again, is strong proof that something, inherently, isn’t right. There is, perhaps, a locus within us that still swirls restlessly, as if we were not meant to fill ourselves with materialistic tendencies *shocking* or perpetual deserving rewards from subconsciously godified corporations, whose advertisements of an omnipotent ability to ease any and all sorts of pain or emptiness we presumptuously hasten towards.
This unsettled locus, tendency, inclination, or however you want to perceive it, wants something more valuable. Perhaps; to achieve great things, help people, make others laugh, service communities, be with one another in a way that is real, and hold genuine conversations that culminate into lightbulb moments or memories worth cherishing. It’s strange to say, but we want something more than what we want (outwardly as it pertains to our own egotistical whims). We, somewhere in our inherent dispositions, want something, perhaps, Greater than the fulfillment of our wants. Many spiritual and religious traditions, including the Abrahamic faiths, recognize this kind of want as not just a virtuous one inclining towards the quintessential hallmark of humanity, but also as a primordial reality that indeed exists within us all. One that needs to be exercised.
Maybe we can call it a type of Generosity.
When we incline towards the support of others, rather than strictly ourselves, our limbs can finally be utilized outside of the confines of “I”—meaning the self. This is perhaps when we come to understand their purpose. Although “I” may not want to do it, it is, nevertheless, what must be done. Generosity, the bricks of a moral edifice that becomes taller and taller, firmer and firmer when used for others, is a virtue oft-overlooked in our contemporary age. The closest thing to it may be a perfunctory kind of transactional utilitarianism that is only activated when something is done to us in return — which still upholds a subservience to selfishness and the “I”.
Needless to say, the mentality of “I’m only in it for me” appears to be the secret ingredient for loneliness, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and other psychological illnesses that seem to be more widespread than ever in the history of humanity. Strangely, each of these psychological impairments are internal struggles that come from within and stay within. Generosity, however, in a way, can be perceived as a medium to channel the hoarded potential of service towards the world, which rescues the “you” from drowning or suffocating itself within itself.
When this hoarded potential is not channeled properly, and simply exists as a means to exclusively serve the self in a selfish and demoralizing way to everyone and everything else, then perhaps this is the very precursor for the aforementioned internal psycho-spiritual illnesses to exist and proliferate within the self. The hoarded pool of potentiality is maybe instead meant to be irrigated out towards others, and not just the self. We retain too much of our potential and delegate it exclusively to ourselves. Thus, like an overweight person who hoards fruit and meat only for himself, finds that the food begins to rot. Or like one who hoards his wealth without disbursing a portion of it to those who may very well need it more, such a person finds that his wealth rots into the form of greed, and corrupts him. Perhaps the blessings we have been given, whether in the form of service, potential, energy, time, wealth, or food, are meant to flow towards others, like a freshwater spring; always in motion, and providing life to wherever it may extend. This is unlike an unkept pond, whose waters stay hoarded and stagnant — eventually rotting, smelling, and providing very little benefit to those who may encounter it.
“Our mission no longer becomes an obsessive type of selfish self-fulfillment through running towards materialistic pleasures and away from the pains of dealing with others. Rather, we have now taken ourselves out of such an incessant, reductionist loop and find ourselves connected to people, places, and creation (the Earth) at large.”
Similarly, when we offer our services to others, we begin to step outside of ourselves, and through communication and intentful engagement with another human being, we are brought back into the reality of the world that we truly live in as opposed to dwelling within the false world constructed by and in the self. This may be the first step to “putting yourself in another’s shoes”. Otherwise, how can we actually do that without first coming out of ourselves? If we are incessantly focused on “I” there is likely no hope of hearing, feeling, or understanding “you” (i.e. the other). Caring for others, wishing the best for them, and even servicing them in a way that is helpful, deliberate, and within one’s ability, leads to a path of freedom from the shackles of obsessively selfish, and ephemeral, feel-good cravings.
Generosity coupled with intention not only takes the focus off of the “I” and onto another, allowing us to connect with them, but these proxies also inevitably sew the fabric of communities tighter and tighter together. And all of a sudden, we become more human. The once seemingly trivial acts of smiling and asking how people’s days are, listening to them wholeheartedly, virtuously providing where there is need, etc, etc, foster love, care, and belonging between and within ourselves. All of a sudden, the once automatic thought of “me and my needs” transforms into “I wonder how my family and friends are doing” which creates a pathway toward wider connections. These emotions bind to their recipients — other human beings — and the more pathways we have with one another, the more closely knit we truly become.
The depths of these social and emotional connections with others are more than simply short-lived dopamine rushes. As long as the various aforementioned intentions and feelings are maintained, so too will the realities of love, belonging, and true fulfillment be experienced. Our mission no longer becomes an obsessive type of selfish self-fulfillment through running towards materialistic pleasures and away from the pains of dealing with others. Rather, we have now taken ourselves out of such an incessant, reductionist loop and find ourselves connected to people, places, and creation (the Earth) at large. We then feel a sense of duty, obligation, and responsibility to give others what we may want for ourselves, and with enough people connected; others will give us what we want — making the process of giving and receiving communal rather than strictly individual.
And so, the next time we experience a situation that we almost instinctively deem dysfunctional, and incline towards evading it, can we not ask ourselves what it is that we can do? Even if it is very little and does not immediately solve the problem? How can we positively contribute to a world we see as ugly and gray? How can we preserve the bonds of hope and connection to spread such life-giving generosity everywhere we go instead of simply seeing things as hopeless? How can we step outside of ourselves, do something for others, and unlock a whole new potential of our humanity? How can we seek to preserve beauty and begin to see it in the world, others, and eventually, ourselves?
Q.
What have you been avoiding lately that is of disservice to yourself? Is it relevant to the mentioned analysis? Is Generosity a remedy?
AND I WANT YOUR CRITIQUES.