Chasing Dopamine

The world is chasing dopamine and society is slowly falling apart. As we progress into a more perfect world filled with ruthless efficiency, relationships mean less, authentic feelings are harder to come by, and prosperity exaggerates the pointlessness of it all.

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Now all of that seems kind of bleak, but from my viewpoint things appear to be headed in such a direction. Due to the sheer amount of information and the ease of access to that information, other people are simply not as necessary as they once were to surviving. Thus, we see the anti-social trends of media and the internet connect people to each other but in looser and more shielded ways in the past. And this technology fulfills the social desires for so many that real contact is slowly disappearing.

Less and less we need to ask others for help, and less and less we know how to ask for help since we have done it so little. We might know how to communicate to strangers better than ever, but we struggle to communicate our struggles and lapses to those close around us. We suppress these feelings and isolate them within ourselves, displaying a fake persona to the world in hopes of scoring recognition within the society we no longer really feel a part of anymore.

With weaker relationships, we experience less authentic feelings. Embedded in our own egoism, we never really experience true love. We rarely experience moments of true unique bliss. We rarely explore new experiences and challenge the boundaries of our own identities. And there aren't really people close enough to challenge us. We crave something different but are afraid to speak up.

We hunger for these authentic experiences but can not quite reach them. Instead, we replace these authentic moments by chasing dopamine. By finding cheap addictions to keep our minds off of our fear of missing out in life. Our bad moments can simply be medicated away with some momentary medicine. We embrace the chase like there is no tomorrow, but there always is.

The next morning, we stare listlessly questioning our existence for a moment. But then we begin a new chase. A new hunt for dopamine. A hedonistic pursuit to replace emptiness with good feelings. But these feelings are shallow as they lack the true authenticity of genuine experience.

So, now we are lonely hedonists chasing dopamine. Our relationships are shallow. Our feelings are shallow. The world feels empty and our meaning is shallow. We struggle to find purpose as things worth pursuing are easier and easier to achieve within the span of a lifetime and less and less worth the time to pursue.

With a lack of purpose, the daily routine drives many into depression. And we come to the fork in the road again. Do we continue to feel empty or do we begin another chase for some temporary remedy? At some point it feels like some pointless exercise against death itself. Some people end it, others continue the good fight. We'll pretend that we are happy but that is simply a veneer over the true soulless ego that processes information underneath.

It all seems like we are trending to some infinite efficiency and lose our humanity along the way. There is no struggle but that against apathy and emptiness. There is no hope as all goals have been achieved. All that is left is to take your happiness pills and wait to die.