I have been looking for the knowledge that would answer all of my existential questions for however many years and this article is the culmination of events, experiences, listening, reading and digging I have been doing for the last ten years. Most of the dots are now connected.
WARNING! Throughout this article, I will only indulge in truths and only the courageous ones can face and deal with the truth as it is. Some words and sentences may be too harsh to swallow. The less the reader tries to protect her skin and the more she exposes her true naked self to the burning fire of the truth, the more illusionary impurities will be evaporated and what is left will be the real self in its true naked form or I should say: formless form.
Truth #1. Human beings are dopamine slaves.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Did you just call us dopamine slaves? How dare you?” This is probably what your mind is going through right now and may be even considering not reading this anymore. Well allow me to explain. Kindly think of the last 10 actions you have decided to take and how many of them were due to your desire for attaining a short-time gratification/high? Just like all living beings, human beings are hardwired for seeking instant highs and gratifications due to how our motivation system works.
Think of the last few actions you have taken. How many of them were in chase of dopamine release? The last time you picked up your phone to scroll through social media is one example. Why are we chasing this release of dopamine? To feel “good.” To feel high. Is it necessary to chase these highs? This is up for a debate, but I will share my thoughts on this later. Then, the final question would be why we have this motivation system consisting of constant seeking of dopamine release? It has to do with human beings’ general survival mechanism which has been developed and refined for over millions of years.
As theorized by the scientists of the past centuries, all living creatures are born with an inherent desire for survival as well as leaving their seeds. Male lions fight over a pride and for control of land whereas men fight wars in order to maximize their probability of survivability as well as making sure their breeds continue existing in the future. In order to motivate animals to chase these two desires, the nature has embedded animals’ brains with motivation mechanism consisting of dopamine release. Hunting and eating food don’t only fill the empty stomach but also signals the brain to release dopamine. Having a sexual intercourse with the opposite gender don’t only allow breeding and creation of the offspring but also releases one of the most intense dopamine. As brutal it may be, the nature has encoded our genetics the desire to fight for survival and enhanced these desires with reward system consisting of seeking pleasure in the form of dopamine release so that each species will interact with one another, to create that particular ecosystem which Taoists call the “WAY.” Birds and insects depend on each other for their survival. Birds eat insects in order to keep their population under control; otherwise, insects would eat themselves to die, meaning that if insects’ population increases too much to the point the earth itself cannot to sustain then the whole nature will be “eaten” by insects. If there was no motivation factor for birds to eat insects to make sure they survive, the whole ecosystem would collapse.
Now what’s the problem? Addiction and laziness. Most human beings’ problems stem from this desire for dopamine release and the repulsion to do what is necessary due to our laziness. Truth number 2 - Human beings are inherently lazy; otherwise, we would still be running after food today literally with spears. We invent things because we are lazy. We invented cars because we didn’t want to ride horses all the time for however many hours. We invented vacuum cleaner because there was one lazy guy sick of sweeping floors. Thus, human beings seek what is pleasurable and try to discard what isn’t pleasurable. And at the end of the day, the strongest desire of all desire wins and is always realized through action which is Truth number 3.
What is the problem with desires? No problem at all unless your desire is killing you. People today are eating themselves to death. The body wants healthy food but those tasty but unhealthy food looking yummy and we choose to eat the unhealthy food over the healthy options until it is too late or we get fat and we do something about it. Whatever substance one is chasing, the addicts literally throw their lives away to get that last drop of that instant high. Truth number 4 — We are all addicts with varying degrees of intensity unless we are completely free from any desires. We all know that we should be saving as much money as possible but end up buying those ice-creams, coffees and drinks while lying to ourselves that this is the last time, or we even rationalize the purchase by making ourselves believe that human beings are born to chase highs and dopamine release is the meaning of life. Also, this never-ending cycle of chasing cheap pleasure sap us of any energy to do actually what’s needed to be done. Once we get that high and our survival is guaranteed, then we are no longer motivated to do anything else other than chasing the next high. Once we are in this cycle, it is an endless downward spiral. The cycle repeats and repeats while the individual builds up tolerance and needs to go for higher dosage to feel the similar effect.
When we were born as babies, our minds were clear and empty. As we grow, we experience life and start labeling and listing each event into two categories: likes and dislikes. In a sense, our mind is now a heap of information on which we base our decision in times of uncertainty. This formed and shaped mind offer human beings a fake sense of security and certainty by thinking that the mind has now enough information for the endless mysteries of life. If there is any unknown in the way, we tend to force our will on that unknown because dealing with what is familiar is easier than accepting the truth that the mind doesn’t know anything about and studying about it is too much work (This never works well by the way). Truth number 5 is that human beings hate to attempt a new unknown challenge as any attempt to do so which results into a failure is always followed by an agony of pain. This is one of the main reasons why most people who have formed and shaped mind dislike changes. The harder the formation and the denser the mind becomes, the more repulsive we are to changes. As soon as we fail at something, the physical and emotional pain make us fearful of trying again. The fear is embedded in us by nature in order to maximize our chances of survival as well. So, it seems there are many factors working against our success.
It is natural law that any kind of meaningful success depends on daily consistent work which don’t offer instant gratifications and sooner than later, doing the same thing over and over again for however many days turn to be boring, become mechanical as the initial interest fades away. At that point, there are also countless many activities like surfing the social media which offer instant highs. Additionally, our fear of failure is constantly in the back of our mind lurking and chattering about negativity the whole time. Lastly, add the effect of our inherent laziness on top of all of these. As a result, we have these four factors working against us for reaching our goals to be great. And, for those who have victim mindset will always find a way to blame their misfortune or failure not on themselves, specifically these factors but other outside factors that are out of their control or even lie to themselves to believe in whatever bullshit they came up with. Whoever under all of these five factors is pretty much fucked, unless this person finally understands and accepts the fact that his or her beloved formed mind is the main culprit. He or she will always live a life of a slave, an existence of pity and pain without freedom to act however he or she sees fit. He or she will always live in a mental prison with his or her formed mind as a 247 warden of that prison.
A man’ s war has never been with the outer world. He who never conquers himself would never conquer the world. His war is with himself, inside, with his mind. And he must win this war as soon as possible; otherwise, his internal world would always be having battles and never at ease. If the war continues long enough, he will go mad like the character Joker in Batman. Even if you put Joker in heaven, he will not be able to be at peace within himself. You can put Buddha in hell, and he will find peace. That is the main difference between these two men: One who conquered himself and found peace while the one who wasn’t able to and finally gave in to his madness. There are very few options for men with internal conflict: escape into temporary safe havens such as drugs, alcohol, porn or whatever it may be, commit suicide to end it all, go with his madness, or try to control it with force which means never ending conflict within himself.
Force is never the solution. He may temporarily put down the ego or the mind but when the next battle comes, he has to exert more force on himself, so forth and so on. Sooner than later, he is going to crush and hit the brick wall. If force doesn’t work, then what will? What will eternally free us from ourselves, from our minds without single ounce of force so that we as men can start living fully as free men? That’s the real trick, that’s the real question. Instead of fighting with ourselves, shouldn’t we be our best ally, the most trustworthy friend?
This absolute freedom from the tyranny of the mind is only possible when we can detach ourselves from our minds, when we can create space between ourselves and our minds and where there is no more identification with the mind. The issue is we have been identifying ourselves with our minds for however long we have lived as a human being and this identification is now deeply engraved within the deepest core of our psyches, in the deepest realm of our unconsciousness. There is a study that shows that ninety-five percent of thousands of decisions we make daily are made by the unconscious mind meaning we are only conscious and free during the remaining five percent of our lives. The reason why it’s so damn hard to be free from the mind is because we are trying to set ourselves free from what was going on for however many years we have lived and is hidden inside the deepest part of our unconsciousness. It is one thing to be aware of this truth, but it is a whole different beast to actually be aware of the unconsciousness in its work, to catch it in action and actually to bring light of awareness in the shadows of the unconsciousness.
I have been studying eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, Zen and Taoism for the last ten years and the main point is to achieve this freedom from the mind so that human beings can start living at ease within themselves first instead of trying to force our will on the outside world which would never succeed. Imagine one single wave trying to impose its will upon the whole flow of the ocean. That single wave will always be crushed. There are various techniques and what not to set ourselves free from the prison of the mind. But the more we try to escape from this prison with sheer force, the more the warden will strengthen the security of this prison. But if we would stop feeding energy to the prison system, it will start degrading, the security will start losing its strength, and after enough time is passed the whole prison will collapse and we can go living as free men. By whatever means necessary the idea is to stop feeding the energy the prison needs to sustain itself so that one day it will break down completely. Any identification with the mind is feeding, any form of fighting against the mind’s desires is also feeding. The idea is to catch your unconscious process of feeding the beast in action and stop the feeding. Do not feed the beast however long and it will die of starvation. But we can’t rush the process just as we can’t rush the process of draining water; the water will drain as per the laws of physics no matter how hard we may push the water down or how hard we may want or desire the water to be drained faster, it will drain in due time as per the laws of physics. That’s the whole point. That’s why we need discipline to see through the whole process until the end. Discipline is simply doing what we need to do instead of doing something else. If we don’t have discipline, no matter how modern and super gadget we may have, we would never follow through until the end.
You might be wondering how you may be able stop the feeding? Well, teaching any technique that worked for others doesn’t necessarily means it would work for anyone else. The seeker of the freedom must find his own way of doing it. The idea is there and that is a good enough starting point. If you are dehydrated and lost by yourself while on the brink of dying in a dessert, then a man with water in a canteen comes to you and gives you his canteen, you wouldn’t ask that man how to drink water. You will find a way to drink that water no matter what. That’s the level of sense of seriousness it needs for anyone to succeed in anything. Being not sincere and serious never achieves anything. But some don’t want to achieve anything. Some people just want to live drifting day by day, from moment to moment under the tyranny of the mind. That’s not really actively living; that’s more like just existing. But it’s not up to me or up to the God to decide what people want to do with their lives. It is up to the individual to decide his or her fate and this is the real gift of life.
Final notes. Throughout my life since I started being conscious, I have been asking myself this existential question: What is the meaning of life? Couldn’t find an answer until now. The following is what I have found.
The whole life is just a game for us to play in it. The point of playing a game is to have the most fun while playing it, playing as how you want to play as a free man not as a slave. Slaves don’t play, they only participate as per their masters’ command. And a man is only free if he is free from his mind. Being the wealthiest and the most powerful doesn’t matter if a man is still under his unconsciousness, he is still a slave, just a powerful slave. It is up to the individual who they are going to be: a free man or a slave. The choice is always with us. That’s the life’s greatest gift-the freedom to choose who we will be. There are no rules except the ones you set for yourselves in this game. It is up to the individual how he wants to play but chasing dopamine, then crushing and then chasing the next dopamine is definitely not how anyone wants to play. There is an inner voice inside all of us telling us how we want to play this game of life, but we are blinded and deafened by the loud desires and needs for the constant seeking of cheap pleasures to the point we no longer hear our voice, and it has become too dormant to hear. But on a calm day, a faint whistle from miles away can be heard, a single drop of water can be felt by the whole lake if it is completely tranquil and as such, if a human being’s inner space is absolutely tranquil, then even the faintest voice can be heard. Next, the clarity of vision will be born and you will know how you sincerely want to play the game.
