I can be happy….
Like many of my friends and neighbors, I sometimes feel that any time spent other than fighting injustice, going to work, dealing with health issues, or caring for others is a waste of time. The fun can be lost. Having fun while the world burns. It is placing flowers in the window of a building that is about to be demolished. It sits silently while our rights and lives are taken away from us.
I could be happy. May I be healthy. I can live in peace. May all beings be free from suffering. I learned from this loving-kindness practice, meditation, and desire Author and Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg And others thinking of myself as happy, laughing, for example, in today’s world, especially at this moment, can free me from rumination, anxiety. We need to feel that we can find moments of happiness despite the multiple threats in our world. If we think we can’t be happy, we can give up and do nothing.
To feel that we can be happy we need to feel that we have agency, that we can change ourselves and the world around us.
To feel that we can change, it is helpful to feel present here in the moment. When we feel present, we experience joy more easily.
I heard a program on NPR a few days ago. The show was an interview with Alicia Garceau Michaeline DuclefAuthor of a new book called Dopamine Kids: A Science-Based Plan to Revive Your Child’s Brain and Lead Your Family Back to the Age of Screens and Highly Processed Foods. The book applies evidence to how research mainly funded by the gambling industry used social media platforms and the food industry to get us addicted to their products.
Duclef is a science writer and trained biochemist. Several years ago, he wanted to figure out how to reduce his family’s reliance on new technology and highly processed foods. He found something surprising.
We think of the hormone and neurotransmitter dopamine as the pleasure molecule. What he discovered is that dopamine doesn’t make us happy; Instead, it connects us to what we are doing. It creates a feeling of wanting. We eat chips and we eat them, because they don’t really satisfy us. They have little nutrition. But the more we eat, the more we want. We get caught whenever we want.
And when we want, we feel empty. What we feel Buddhist philosophers David Loy describes it as a lack; We feel that what we have, what we are, is not enough. Part of the Buddhist understanding is the cause of suffering or our life being unsatisfying. Wanting wants wanting never stops. It robs us of joy and agency.
Children want and focus on their screen time. They got caught”Infinite scroll” Not because it brings them joy; the screen experience robs them. It promises so much, a sense of belonging, community, support. But it’s a trick. It’s like a game advertised by a casino that promises us riches but instead causes financial loss.
Casino The goal is to create a continuous, timeless, flow-like state within the player so that we can more easily feel like we’ve won something when we haven’t. For example, a game may give a player 15 percent credit per future play; But they have to bet 20 cents to get this credit. So they are always behind. This state is called “Dark Stream“Instead of just dopamine, we have a different body-brain system that makes us want what we want and feel satisfied when we get it,” Duclef said.
But, Doucleff reminds us, we can’t just throw away the screen or the gambling machines. We need to replace them with something legitimately desirable, engaging and fun. Something that helps us feel satisfaction or a sense of meaning and legitimate accomplishment. When we talk to someone, we must devote our hearing and sight to them. When we eat, we need to focus on the taste of each bite. We are better when we focus on the quality of the experience and the people who participate with us.
I recently took a Zoom class. Sometimes, I just listened intently. Sometimes I took notes. Sometimes, I was distracted by a random thought or thought that jumped to the front of my mind. Once, I focused more closely and noticed how confused I was; And suddenly, the speaker’s eyes became so full, as if he was looking at me alone. Everything in the room he was standing in grew. I felt like smiling. And his voice—I could not only hear the sound and the meaning of the words, but something beyond what I could describe in words.
When we feel present, We feel stronger, more able to think clearly and less likely to be manipulated. When we get caught up in “dark currents,” which rob us of perspective and agency, we feel more isolated, selfish, and suspicious; We are more easily manipulated. I think this is the intention of many of us consumer society. It is also a painful side effect of continuous DT creates chaos and shocks our system. We should not get caught up in “dark currents” and constant desires. We somehow need it Live our lives as fully as possible while doing what we can to save our world and nation.
We can be happy. May we work to reduce the world’s suffering.
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