Hell, Dopamine and Climate
A well-known allegory depicts hell as a banquet hall with a long table filled with food. People sentenced to eternal punishment sit at the table but are unable to eat from its bounty. In some versions of the story, their utensils are too long to be useful, in others their elbows are somehow disabled and so they are unable to bring food to their mouth. Whatever the version, people suffer eternal hunger while just below them is an unobtainable feast. The lesson is that people in hell are so self-centered they never understand the only way out of their misery is to feed their neighbor and then allow oneself to be fed by them. Essentially, hell is a place where one’s appetites can never be satisfied due to character flaws.
If that’s the case, then maybe we’re living in hell. Maybe, our true existence happened on another planet, and we’ve been sent here as punishment, because it seems few of us have developed the ability to be satiated. We don’t seem to be able to turn off our need for more and more - of everything.
In the 1950’s the average house size was around 980 square feet and was occupied by 3.37 people. Today, the average house size is more than double that, while holding 30% less people. As late as the 1970’s, half of new houses had single stall garages. Three stall garages are not uncommon in McMansion developments today.
It all brings to mind the great George Carlin observation: “All your house is, is a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff…. Sometimes you’ve got to get a bigger house because you’ve got too much stuff…. and maybe put some of your stuff in storage. Imagine that, there’s a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff.”
Like everything, the storage industry is much bigger today than in 1981 when Carlin developed that routine. In the U.S., more storage units exist than fast food restaurants. Add in the basements, attics and garages stuffed to their gills and you understand the scope of the problem. But why do we do this? Why do we over consume?
A friend of mine lamented that his mother’s home was so full that some members of the family encouraged her to go through it and get rid of things she didn’t use. In exasperation, one sibling said, “You know mom, if you don’t go through your things, we won’t know what’s important and what’s not. And we’ll just have to get a dumpster when you pass and throw everything out.” To this, mom replied, “What will I care? I’ll be dead.”
Mom gets to the heart of the expanding blob that is our stuff. We collect things because they give us comfort, and most of us don’t care whether our things give other people comfort. From the same routine, Carlin says, “Have you ever noticed that other people’s stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?”
Apparently, a factor in our over consumption is dopamine. We get a chemical shot of pleasure in our bodies when we eat, drink, compete to survive and reproduce. In other words, doing any of the things necessary to human survival gives us a sense of pleasure.
Do you notice another thing about this list? These are the things marketers use to separate us from our money. If we buy their products, we can attach our sense of security and survival to those objects, and it makes us feel better. It makes us feel permanent and established as well as giving us a fleeting sense of pleasure. The reason other people’s stuff is shit, but our shit is stuff, is the dopamine hit we received from accumulating our stuff.
A climate downside exists in all of this. Locked into every product we buy is a certain amount of carbon dioxide from its production. That CO2 will be in the atmosphere for our grandchildren to deal with. When you drive by a storage shed and see acres and acres of garages holding unused stuff, it might be helpful to not only think about the economic waste of all that stuff, but you can also think about all the carbon up in the atmosphere that was emitted to make the unused things; things that will just sit until our heirs call in a dumpster. Then it will sit in a landfill where the only real difference is the geography.
Of course, our world’s religions, when not co-opted by kings, queens, politicians and nationalists have always tried to be a moderating force against over consumption. A cynic might suggest that those restraints were part of some social construct, while a believer will be more apt to say that preoccupation with our base appetites prohibits us from experiencing the holy other.
Whatever the case, since one of our more forceful motivations is to experience security and permanence in this world, perhaps our guiding philosophy in buying things should be: will this thing aid or hinder my progeny’s future?
And luckily, dopamine hits exist in many ways. Exercise, calm music, meaningful relationships and spending time in nature are a few of those ways and most are carbon neutral! But perhaps the best high dopamine activity of all – one that releases us from this hell of modern life – is performing acts of kindness. This earth is a banquet before us, all we need to do is pick up a plate and give it to our neighbor.