Tag: dopamine

Daily Life, Health, Motivation

Anticipation

It was quiet. Birds chirping. A light breeze blowing through the tops of the trees. The occasional whoomph as a clump of snow fell somewhere off in the distance. Most importantly, it was warm. I had to stop several times and simply stand with my face turned towards the sun, soaking in the rays. It was glorious. I was out skate skiing with my dog and had been looking forward to this for several days. That epic blue sky ski outing was the perfect antidote to a long gray winter.

The spring like weather continued over the weekend, and we took full advantage. Gardening, spring cleaning, taking the storm windows off. Yesterday I napped in the sun for an hour and sat in the backyard reading a book late into the afternoon. As I lay in the sun, my mind continuously went over things I could do this week with this window of perfect weather. I’ll get the motorcycle out. The trails are probably dry enough to go for a mountain bike ride. I can hike the dog without the trails being a muddy, sloppy mess. I might dust off the drone and go flying. So many possibilities.

As I lay there sunning skin that is pasty white from a long winter of coats and pants and flannel, I had a bit of an epiphany. It wasn’t just the sun that was putting me in a good mood. It was anticipation of all the things I wanted to do. I was starting to plan and look forward to the future again.

People always say that as you transition into retirement it’s important to stay busy. To maintain a schedule. They say that to be happy you need to have a purpose. I think that’s only partially true. What we really need is anticipation.

With that warm weather ski, I decided to drag out my camera gear and make a little video of the hound running around with me. Editing that video got me thinking about what I wanted to film this summer. That turned into several hours of organizing camera gear and ordering some parts for the drone. I watched some videos of tips for filming different camera angles and it really got me excited to try them out soon. The anticipation – the feeling of looking forward to something gave me that little dopamine hit that put me in a good mood.

Similarly, I was chatting with a buddy that I ride motorcycles with. He said that he really wanted to do more motorcycle camping this summer. That led to hours of researching which campgrounds will be snow free the soonest. It gave me a good feeling to think about the trips we might take, planning routes, and getting gear ready. Anticipation.

We have a trip to Mexico coming up. Another trip to see some family we don’t see often enough. Friends are driving across country in their motorhome to see us this summer, ride motorcycles and explore the area. I’m looking forward to all these things. I want more of that feeling of “looking forward to”.

If you think about it, anticipation is everything. The restaurant you’ve been wanting to try that you made reservations for. A concert you’ve been wanting to see. A tee time at a new golf course. Meeting friends for lunch that you haven’t seen in a while. It doesn’t matter what it is, the key is having that sense of pleasant anticipation.

That’s what keeps us moving forward.

Lose that and it’s over. If you’ve got nothing to look forward to, then what’s the point?

This winter was harsh. Bad snow, limited ski days, gray, storms, and cold. With, what felt like limited options to do anything, I found myself I found myself more and more frequently retreating to my comfy chair to read and nap. More napping than reading realistically. The more napping I did, the less inclined I was to go plan something to do. Sloth begets sloth, as the saying goes. I now realize that the prescription for next year is pre-planning things. A sprinkling of quick trips to explore cities we haven’t been to. Scheduling ski lessons to improve skills and keep me motivated. It doesn’t matter what it is. What’s important is to have a steady diet of anticipation for something.

I think this is why spring feels like such a joyous time. After a long winter, warm sun brings out the feeling of possibility. You can bust out the shorts and bathing suits. Think about swimming in the lake, riding your bike, or heading out on that summer vacation. It’s the anticipation that makes us feel good.

I’m going to spend the next few weeks planning activities. I think I’ll overcompensate this summer and try to have non-stop activities. I want to be in never ending planning mode. Upcoming motorcycle trips, camping trips, road trips, day outings, and activities. I want so much god damn anticipation I’ll be begging for some down time.

The dopamine rush from a warm day and looking forward to possibilities is addicting. I want more of that feeling. I don’t want to go back to the monotone feeling of sitting in the comfy chair and napping.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go get my dog a hike. He’s been looking forward all day for his run and chasing birds.

Anticipation.

Daily Life

Are Dark Forces At Work?

My entire life I’ve been a good sleeper. As in I lay down, close my eyes, open them and it’s the next morning. I rarely remember dreams (if I do, they tend to be disturbing in some way). I’ve never worried about sleeping… it just works for me. Until recently. For some reason lately I’ve been waking up at 3-3:30 am every morning. It’s weird. It’s instantaneous. Suddenly my eyes are open and I’m wondering if maybe I heard something? I often have the feeling that I was in the middle of a dream, but I don’t remember what it was. At this point I’m wide awake. Going back to sleep is not an option.

I don’t understand why this is happening. I’m not stressed. It doesn’t matter what time I went to bed. It makes no difference how tired I am. It just keeps happening. While annoying, I haven’t really thought much about it. Then today, a writer I follow on Twitter/X posted this:

“There is definitely a strange energy in the air. “Dread” isn’t really my emotional struggle. Mostly it’s being flat or too intense. Been feeling those demonic emotions tho and others are noticing same, as well as 3 am waking up feeling weird. Zeitgeist change. Not a good one… Some really dark shifts occurring / stuff is at work. If you’re tuned into the fields, unmistakable sense of something being or about to be ‘off.'”

There was a flood of replies to that post all saying, “me too; started waking up at 3am a month ago; I never woke at 3am in my life, now have every day for weeks…”

I’m not a religious person, nor do I subscribe to the idea of the supernatural. But I will admit, this made me wonder. What if there is an alternate plane of energy or reality out there? Could there be forces of evil or good that exist in an alternate dimension that most of us aren’t tuned into?

All the ancient peoples, from the Norse up to the native Americans believed in good and bad forces that occasionally entered our world to attempt to influence us. All religions have some elements of this in their writings. In our recent “modern” era, it’s easy to dismiss the idea of the supernatural as rantings of hard core religious folks or primitive peoples who were uneducated and believed in witchcraft and magic to explain the world around them. But maybe those pre-modern era folks were simply more tuned in to their environment than we are?

It certainly would be easy to look around at the world today and feel that dark forces have become more powerful. The level of evil that permeates modern politics is disturbing. The lust for power, money, and war truly frightens me. The near daily videos on the internet showing unchecked looting, violence, and complete disregard for any sort of societal norms is depressing. I watch our young people, university indoctrinated in a vapid left leaning ideology, eager to demonstrate in the streets in support of murdering and kidnapping innocent civilians and wonder who’s influencing them? What sort of demon convinces someone to tear down a poster of a kidnapped child?

Again, I am not a religious person but I do wonder if our move away from more traditional Judeo-Christian family/societal values, and towards a more secular society, have invited in dark forces? The United States and Western Europe have lost their national identities. In the name of multiculturalism and globalism, the sense of community you once held is gone. It’s blasphemy to be a proud American, Swede, Englishman, etc…

By destroying the tribe, we’ve become collections of individuals. And individuals are easier to corrupt and influence as they have no allegiance to their neighbors. Lacking that common bond of familial and tribal norms that help regulate behaviors – the individual is easy prey for external and dark influences. Has traditional society collapsed enough that demons are crossing over to find easy prey and further spread dark energy?

I’m starting to think our large tech overlords may be the dark force that corrupts us all. Tech and AI is influencing everything we read, it suppresses truth, and strives to keep us enslaved to our devices. I was traveling the last few days and got a data usage warning on my phone since I wasn’t connected to wifi. I investigated and discovered I’d consumed an ungodly amount of data on Instagram. Why? I’ve gotten hooked on those stupid 30 second reels. Car crashes, funny animal videos, etc… the system is designed to keep you mindlessly scrolling for hours. I thought about it and realized I’ve been sucked into it. Every 15 or 30 minutes or so, all day long, I catch myself scrolling for a quick five minutes (or so I tell myself).

If I was a demon and wanted to drive a wedge between human interaction and create sloth, greed, and envy… what a perfect way to do it. The tech influencers are creating a dopamine dependency that makes going out and experiencing the real world seem exhausting and not worth the effort. Now that they have your zombie-like attention span, what other messaging can they begin to push?

Then again, maybe there is no demonic force that’s preying upon people. Perhaps it is just human nature in an environment of excess and no natural predators. When your day is no longer filled with physical work and you have the availability of instant information – and no need to put the effort in to study to understand the world around you, it may be that the dark forces are simply the byproduct of weak and lazy minds. Fat, bored, and fueled by easy dopamine hits, we exist in a globalist world that celebrates a lack of identity. It does seem like the perfect recipe for succumbing to the worst of human behavior. The traditional guardrails of society seem to be disappearing.

I’m not sure what to think. What I do know is that something seems “off” in the world right now. Drifting around the edges, there’s a sense that something doesn’t seem right. This worries me and I don’t know what to do about it.

All I can do is hope that when I do run into the Wendigo in the forest… I recognize it for what it is.

Cool, Daily Life, Motivation

Take Action

A few days ago I was endlessly scrolling through YouTube. I’ve made several strategic mistakes lately. I made the unfortunate choice to search for some how-to videos related to stove downdraft vents, and an HVAC issue. Oh, and I watched a review of the best non-stick pans. What can I say, I’m a guy of diverse hobbies. Anyway, the end result is that my YouTube feed is now nothing but old guys extolling the virtues of half inch vs quarter inch corrugated pipe for venting and ads for the magic of diamond-copper-silicone infused cookware. Sigh. I need a separate YouTube account for research only so I don’t pollute my main feed.

But one video did make its way through and caught my eye. It was about taking action. Now the specific video was geared toward general preparedness, but the message was universal. Want to make a change? Then you need to take action.

The videos point was that “taking action” didn’t need to be a huge endeavor. Been thinking about putting a first aid kit in your car? Stop what you’re doing right now and go gather some bandaids, medical tape, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and a few bottles of water and go put it in your trunk. Takes five minutes and is probably stuff you already have in the house. Done. You took action and made progress.

It doesn’t mean you can’t add more or get fancier with your kit later on. What’s important is that you didn’t let analysis paralysis get the better of you. You took action right now and made a change. You now have a rudimentary first aid kit in your car that you didn’t have twenty minutes ago.

Taking action on one small thing is better than doing nothing. So many of us (myself especially) have grand plans for a project or eating better or exercise… yet we never get to it because we’re waiting for it to be perfect. Researching the right gym to join or what the right exercise program is. What diet should I do? I need to do something with that corner of the yard that’s full of weeds, but don’t know what yet.

Just take action. Go pull weeds for ten minutes. Then do it again tomorrow. Stop worrying about what the right exercise program is – go do a 30 minute walk right now. Go pick one cupboard in the pantry right now and throw out all the crap food. Stop what you’re doing and go organize one drawer in your office or kitchen.

All of this takes a minuscule amount of time and accomplishes something. And if you do it again tomorrow, and then next day, and the next… suddenly you’re productive and getting stuff done. Bonus, I bet you’ll feel better about yourself for having done it. And that’s the secret sauce. The reinforcement of positive actions. That tiny little hit of dopamine that makes us want to do that again.

I’m way more likely to do something that takes ten minutes than something I know is going to be most of the afternoon. It’s human nature.

So that’s my new mantra. I’m going to take action on one thing today. Anything else is a bonus. What small thing are you going to take action on today?