“I sold out long before you ever even heard my name.“ ~Tool
I am beginning to understand why people of means are callous and ignorant, or at least act as though they are.
It’s primarily because I think that low cost (owing to information’s unique supply logistics) intellectual pleasures can’t compete with the gene subsidized sensual pleasures which, by and large, require resources to experience.
A good example is comparing the most boring hike in the woods with the best artistic depiction of a hike in the woods.
No writer, no painter, can truly compete with the pleasure channels accessible only via the senses.
Of course this line is blurring as various forms of simulation get more adept at fooling those senses and processes to give up their dopamine reward for simulated experience. Which is why games and movies are so popular. (And why advertisers own you like so much livestock.) They are dopaminergically speaking, close to the real thing. But sadly they cost resources as well, at least initially in terms of equipment purchase and constantly by way of feeding that equipment. Environment and content costs being the minimum.
Manipulating the brain’s built-in environment renderer is the ideal solution. As per lucid dreaming. But sadly, that’s a single-player exercise for the time being and such an option doesn’t exist for a wide range of minds, until such time as technology opens the door.
I say all this because I find myself in a situation where I am simply waiting for my body to motivate me. Sitting here writing about what I think in the meantime. Because I can’t afford to go do what I would do, resources permitting, and I’ve just about exhausted the acceptable (to this brain state) and available intellectual stimuli afforded me by my status and economic picture.
So here I sit, waiting until outside stimuli or bodily needs present a sensual opportunity with a profit margin in excess of writing about the wait.
That this is a viable solution speaks to my comments above because simple passing hunger or thirst, if nothing else, will in practically no time at all accomplish this goal. And when I am done feeding my pet body, my enteric nervous system will no doubt be affected, feeding back into my mood, which will become congruent with this new state, allowing for a different set of options. Lather, rinse, repeat. Until such time that this bodily need becomes sleep and I experience that disconcerting yet all-too-common time jump we all experience, and its fleeting glimpse into a world of infinite variability and vividness, which really utterly dwarfs reality in every positive subjective sense. At least for me. Maybe your dreams are hollow and dim.
Until such time as we can truly harness the gene to reflect the will of our memes, the gene will utterly dominate the lives of humanity. And those who have learned to (or lucked into the resources allowing them to) placate and manipulate those genes toward the end of influencing the memes will continue to rule humanity.
Oh, look! Bitterness and frustration. New(ish) mental states. I wonder how long till the desire for a simple glass of water will shut out my rage?
Sidethought: Is this why so many faiths include fasting and other forms of body denial? To drown out with their own hunger, thirst, lust and the cries of all those people they are praying for instead of actually helping? Could this be a factor in the many instances of religion seeming to inspire psychopathic behaviors?
“Power over a man’s subsistence amounts to power over his will.” ~Hamilton, Alexander
“You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.” ~Norman Borlaug
