Here’s a curious thought about Little Dopamine and Big Dopamine. We look at our little phones and we think, how can that be Big Dopamine? But it is Big Dopamine. We’re hooked in, we’re addicted.
Look, even smaller. Look how small, like, a little shot of heroin is. Or even smaller, a speck of fentanyl. That’s huge, Big Dopamine.
On the other hand, if you’re in the forest, looking around, maybe you can see mountains in the distance, or you look up at the sky at night, it’s big, it’s huge. But it’s Little Dopamine. Hmm.
And how about this, too? When we think about our little petty lives and our desires, and what’s wrong with this person, and how we dislike work, and how we have ambition to get ahead, and, you know, all that stuff fills our thoughts, and… what are we gonna do tonight? You know, what are we gonna have for dinner? How can I meet that girl or that boy? Big Dopamine. All of it.
Now step back. What about those thoughts that are… a little more abstract? What is justice, or ethics, or freedom? What about the big pictures of history – what happened, how did the human landscape get this way? What about scientific ideas, like evolution or quantum theory? Big, big, big thoughts. Little, little, little, Little Dopamine. Yeah.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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