I noticed even back in college, I could not study in the warm, intimate carpeted Helen C. White Library, at UW Madison, with its soft chairs and even couches, tables around which folks sat collaborating, or “gab-orating,” — I, perversely, (I then thought) I had to study at the first floor Memorial Library study hall, big as an aircraft carrier bay, drafty, Spartan, with long, well separated tables, hard wooden chairs, & total silence. (Smoking was still allowed there in that 70’s time frame, also. Though I was a non-smoker, it didn’t bother me, and I do hope I wasn’t also enjoying a 2nd-hand-smoke stimulation “high!”)
I thought that this monastery-like library personal preference made me a weirdo, and antisocial. (I’d quickly also found I could not study at home or in my college room: not anywhere with proximity to a bed or a refrigerator…) Maybe that latter illustrates part of the reason our nation & government agencies seem to be cratering since the “work from home” mandates & craze? And why a business will pay thousands a month, to rent a space which is not AT HOME. (And why Elon Musk, who IS SUCCESSFUL, has called his workforce back to the office…?)
Happily, my reaction to alcohol is very muted & it’s not a real pleasure, because alcohol (and cigarettes) took down my father, a veteran, and a physicist, at age 68… But, I’m not out of the woods:
I struggle with rage, which provides a temporary “high” of righteous (or unrighteous) indignation, and, with other (likely similar) potent dopamine producers which all can lead to a more SUDDEN death than my Dad experienced from alcohol!
At age 65, I’ve in recent years embarked on eliminating those other addictions, (which also include the, for me, that STRONG anger & over-talking potentiating substance, the ever more prevalent and highly touted alkaloid CAFFEINE), by attending 12-step Celebrate Recovery, weekly. I’m over a year “caffeine free.”
(Happily also, when in college, I asked someone, —not ironically I now see, at the comfortable Helen C. White library location, in my GPA -preserving desperation, if they could get me some “speed,” to help my studies [when coffee, Tab Cola, and No Doze finally let me down], he probably felt, observing my dorky aspect, —that I must be a narcotics officer! —He never called back). The Lord’s mercy, for certain! I’d have become an amphetamine addict for certain!
Thanks again for your Substack, and this piece, —but I won’t “gush” too much! Perhaps there’s a reason the Bible calls “flattery” an act of hostility, not good will? It tips scale of one’s enemy toward complacency, for him to receive it, —just as Solomon cautions “if you find honey, don’t eat too much, or you’ll get sick.” Surely a deeper meaning here, than simply avoiding diabetes, eh? I thought this monastery-like personal preference made me a weirdo, and antisocial. I quickly also found I could not study at home or in my college room: not anywhere with proximity to a bed or a refrigerator… Maybe part of the reason the nation & government agencies seem to be cratering since the “work from home” craze? And why a business will pay thousands a month to rent space which is NOT AT HOME. And Elon Musk, who IS SUCCESSFUL, has called his workforce back to the office…?
Happily my reaction to alcohol is very muted & it’s not a real pleasure, because alcohol (and cigarettes) took down my father, a veteran and a physicist, at age 68… But, I’m not out of the woods!
I struggle with rage, which provides a temporary “high” of righteous (or unrighteous) indignation, and with other (likely) similar) potent dopamine producers which can lead to more SUDDEN death! At age 65, I’m recently embarked on eliminating those, (which also include the, for me, STRONG anger & over-talking potentiating substance, the ever more prevalent and highly touted alkaloid CAFFEINE), by attending 12-step Celebrate Recovery, weekly. I’m over a year “caffeine free.”
(Happily also, when in college, I asked someone, —not ironically I now see, at the comfortable Helen C. White library location, in my GPA -preserving desperation, if they could get me some “speed,” to help my studies [when coffee, Tab Cola, and No Doze finally let me down], he probably felt, observing my dorky aspect, —that I must be a narcotics officer! —He never called back). The Lord’s mercy, for certain! I’d have become an amphetamine addict for certain!
Thanks again for your Substack, and this piece, —but I won’t “gush” too much! Perhaps there’s a reason the Bible calls “flattery” an act of hostility, not good will? It tips scale of one’s enemy toward complacency, for him to receive it, —just as Solomon cautions “if you find honey, don’t eat too much, or you’ll get sick.” Surely a deeper meaning here, than simply avoiding diabetes, eh?
Your comment very recently about having discovered how the Bible so accurately describes our world, in opposition to man’s theories, is born out in this “Pleasure Trap” discussion so widely in The Bible: even the notion that dopamine is not bad or itself addictive, but necessary FOR LIFE. Wicked King Saul, who WASN’T himself on the same page with God, ordered a food FAST, among his soldiers, to impress God in a magical way. His soldiers lost heart, AKA, motivation, when total victory was imminent, as a result of fasting. To add to Saul’s sin, he was then ready to execute his loyal and more righteous son Jonathon, for eating a little honey he found, off the end of his staff or speer. Jonathon had put into practice the maxim later to be recorded by Solomon, Prov 25:16, “If you find honey, eat just enough for yourself…” So the converse of the theme of your article holds true Biblically: knee-jerk, superstitious & fleshly asceticism, like wicked Saul’s, kills as surely as fleshly addiction does.
Thank you for your honesty & comclsuons: Just the title and first sentence or two got my mind racing; I’ll add a comment after watching the linked podcast, if needed. Because I’m battling the same, but dating from half a year BEFORE Christmas, re: losing a schedule (and low-carb diet focus, also) which had been going uncharacteristically well for me, but also beginning to, (during that same period,) anecdotally discover the truth of what you’re quantifying, here, regarding delaying oneself pleasures.
Just the fact I opened YOUR push notification this AM, not “scrolling” farter to open a transfixing but paralyzing next video morsel on our national decay, to await in terror the Day of the Lord (“YouTubers” & “Rumblers” & citizen journalists now so ably document the decline of our civilization & excesses of this past administration, (even when hopeful about the future) my opening your offering to READ it, shows the reward of “pushing back” and actually READING: which is part of your solution. Thanks again!
I have both an addition from my life explaining what broke up a positive routine I was becoming quite excited about for over 6 months; and also a reiteration of your theory, regarding food & motivation level.
Feeling the lack of preaching from the Old Testament in my current church, and almost an attack on it by a member of my previous Bible church, in favor of the 24/7 “Grace: I’m already heaven ready!” narrative which took over that church, I had begun for over a half year on FB, to summarize the daily One Year Bible Old & New Testament passages, and point out the intriguing parallel themes that “by chance” often occur when reading both an OT & NT passage daily; showing both important OT prophecies, being lived out today, AND the fact that God HASN’T really changed, and that backgound knowledge of the OT enhances faith…
My addition to your comments is that perfectionism then stifled this nascent ministry: (is producing the “perfect” writing also a dopamine stimulator?) —I had noticed that in a significant number of my posts, over a couple months, I’d inadvertently added the wrong daily title image to my posts: so the scriptures annotated on the title image didn’t match the ones discussed below! Mentally, I added to this failure the fact that I got little to no feedback, positive or negative, to my summaries, (or even a time consuming longer video version made while walking the dog daily,) and I then lost ALL MOTIVATION. I quit some months ago rather than “forgetting the past” and “pressing forward,” as Paul advises. The idea that someone might actually look, read. & find a confusingly wrongly-titled product, was just too hard on my pride, I hate to admit.
The experience I want to add which parallels yours, regards FASTING, which even secular society is now embracing, (for health reasons), with phone apps telling them when not to eat, etc.
I began fasting the first two meals on Tuesdays some months ago, which I called “two-fer-Tuesdays.” For Spiritual, and obeying-the-Bible reasons. Concurrently my wife and I went low-carb, and lost 28 and 20 lb respectively, pre-COVID… (Maybe a “God thing? —given the increased risk to the overweight?) —and found that just limiting one TYPE of food (starch and sugar) and avoiding certain aisles at the grocery, had value for us, in our rich Western environment with its unlimited food available.
The alarming prospect of a second Biden administration had me begin to, (perhaps pushing God around?) also additionally up to 3 additional days, 20 hours per day, by skipping the first two meals, during the half year run up to this election, praying when I remembered to, for the nation while working.
It was then I found my appreciation of the dinners my wife made increased amazingly. And, I was able to partake again of starch and sugar, during my one nightly meal, and not balloon in weight at the rate that I had been over the decades since I was a young adult.
In fact, my weight stayed steady, even eatinf normal amounts of carbohydrates—but as you noted, this Christmas season, and, in my case, the positive outcome of the election, —blew a hole in my fasting schedule.
So I am trying to recover! Reading your article has helped. And I will add to it a resolution of reading from a Charles Spurgeon anthology that I began, BEFORE I click on social media in the mornings.
Now I will try to watch your video!
Happy new year, and thanks again. I will post this now, then proofread it in notes, then edit it here…for typos and run-on sentences!
(I am using iPhone “notes” as a diary, and often blow a lot of time on that) But, it is so much more convenient than a paper diary.
I believe the Lord actually, this morning, put the word “journal“ into my mind, encouraging me to actually begin a paper journal. (Which I have done many times over the years)! But I’ve always lost my momentum on this. Perhaps the loss short term or recent memory characteristic of my age is the feature The Lord has used to get us to journal, for the future, for family whether foe the Christian parent, or RE the king’s rediscovery of Mordecai’a past good deed, or for any of the prophets who felt compelled to journal their visions and the words of The Lord, so precisely.
I posted this on FB, (not wanting to FLATTER, I hope!!)
“Go to Sarah Salviander, on Substack, and read “The Pleasure Trap,” —& watch the embedded video, from the famous author who publicized DOPAMINE.
We are a nation of ADDICTS, and Frito Lay, etc., only capitalize on the power of dopamine to make us crave “just one more,” in SO MANY areas of life depending on the individual’s responses, to the traps of alcohol, social media, romance novels, fentanyl, and even music: which all leave us unmotivated and apathetic, and procrastinators, unwilling to pursue life anymore, — when our pleasure source lets us down, by depleting dopamine, which is required to be in BALANCE —for us to even LIVE.
The advice of the “wisest man ever to live,” King Solomon, on this subject is applicable across the range of behaviors, from rage addiction to substance abuse, to craving social media accolades: “If you find honey, don’t eat too much,” (Or in the ESV, “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you,
lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” Proverbs 25:16) Not just talking about diabetes, here, either! —It applies to caffeine, speed, fentanyl, porn, romance novels, and the spectrum of pleasures —each very “individual”, of course!
I noticed even back in college, I could not study in the warm, intimate carpeted Helen C. White Library, at UW Madison, with its soft chairs and even couches, tables around which folks sat collaborating, or “gab-orating,” — I, perversely, (I then thought) I had to study at the first floor Memorial Library study hall, big as an aircraft carrier bay, drafty, Spartan, with long, well separated tables, hard wooden chairs, & total silence. (Smoking was still allowed there in that 70’s time frame, also. Though I was a non-smoker, it didn’t bother me, and I do hope I wasn’t also enjoying a 2nd-hand-smoke stimulation “high!”)
I thought that this monastery-like library personal preference made me a weirdo, and antisocial. (I’d quickly also found I could not study at home or in my college room: not anywhere with proximity to a bed or a refrigerator…) Maybe that latter illustrates part of the reason our nation & government agencies seem to be cratering since the “work from home” mandates & craze? And why a business will pay thousands a month, to rent a space which is not AT HOME. (And why Elon Musk, who IS SUCCESSFUL, has called his workforce back to the office…?)
Happily, my reaction to alcohol is very muted & it’s not a real pleasure, because alcohol (and cigarettes) took down my father, a veteran, and a physicist, at age 68… But, I’m not out of the woods:
I struggle with rage, which provides a temporary “high” of righteous (or unrighteous) indignation, and, with other (likely similar) potent dopamine producers which all can lead to a more SUDDEN death than my Dad experienced from alcohol!
At age 65, I’ve in recent years embarked on eliminating those other addictions, (which also include the, for me, that STRONG anger & over-talking potentiating substance, the ever more prevalent and highly touted alkaloid CAFFEINE), by attending 12-step Celebrate Recovery, weekly. I’m over a year “caffeine free.”
(Happily also, when in college, I asked someone, —not ironically I now see, at the comfortable Helen C. White library location, in my GPA -preserving desperation, if they could get me some “speed,” to help my studies [when coffee, Tab Cola, and No Doze finally let me down], he probably felt, observing my dorky aspect, —that I must be a narcotics officer! —He never called back). The Lord’s mercy, for certain! I’d have become an amphetamine addict for certain!
Thanks again for your Substack, and this piece, —but I won’t “gush” too much! Perhaps there’s a reason the Bible calls “flattery” an act of hostility, not good will? It tips scale of one’s enemy toward complacency, for him to receive it, —just as Solomon cautions “if you find honey, don’t eat too much, or you’ll get sick.” Surely a deeper meaning here, than simply avoiding diabetes, eh? I thought this monastery-like personal preference made me a weirdo, and antisocial. I quickly also found I could not study at home or in my college room: not anywhere with proximity to a bed or a refrigerator… Maybe part of the reason the nation & government agencies seem to be cratering since the “work from home” craze? And why a business will pay thousands a month to rent space which is NOT AT HOME. And Elon Musk, who IS SUCCESSFUL, has called his workforce back to the office…?
Happily my reaction to alcohol is very muted & it’s not a real pleasure, because alcohol (and cigarettes) took down my father, a veteran and a physicist, at age 68… But, I’m not out of the woods!
I struggle with rage, which provides a temporary “high” of righteous (or unrighteous) indignation, and with other (likely) similar) potent dopamine producers which can lead to more SUDDEN death! At age 65, I’m recently embarked on eliminating those, (which also include the, for me, STRONG anger & over-talking potentiating substance, the ever more prevalent and highly touted alkaloid CAFFEINE), by attending 12-step Celebrate Recovery, weekly. I’m over a year “caffeine free.”
(Happily also, when in college, I asked someone, —not ironically I now see, at the comfortable Helen C. White library location, in my GPA -preserving desperation, if they could get me some “speed,” to help my studies [when coffee, Tab Cola, and No Doze finally let me down], he probably felt, observing my dorky aspect, —that I must be a narcotics officer! —He never called back). The Lord’s mercy, for certain! I’d have become an amphetamine addict for certain!
Thanks again for your Substack, and this piece, —but I won’t “gush” too much! Perhaps there’s a reason the Bible calls “flattery” an act of hostility, not good will? It tips scale of one’s enemy toward complacency, for him to receive it, —just as Solomon cautions “if you find honey, don’t eat too much, or you’ll get sick.” Surely a deeper meaning here, than simply avoiding diabetes, eh?
Kudos to you for recognizing your trouble areas and taking action
Your comment very recently about having discovered how the Bible so accurately describes our world, in opposition to man’s theories, is born out in this “Pleasure Trap” discussion so widely in The Bible: even the notion that dopamine is not bad or itself addictive, but necessary FOR LIFE. Wicked King Saul, who WASN’T himself on the same page with God, ordered a food FAST, among his soldiers, to impress God in a magical way. His soldiers lost heart, AKA, motivation, when total victory was imminent, as a result of fasting. To add to Saul’s sin, he was then ready to execute his loyal and more righteous son Jonathon, for eating a little honey he found, off the end of his staff or speer. Jonathon had put into practice the maxim later to be recorded by Solomon, Prov 25:16, “If you find honey, eat just enough for yourself…” So the converse of the theme of your article holds true Biblically: knee-jerk, superstitious & fleshly asceticism, like wicked Saul’s, kills as surely as fleshly addiction does.
I listen to Tim Keller podcasts while I exercise. Works for me.
I've listened to those, too. I also like Michael Heiser's podcasts.
Thank you for your honesty & comclsuons: Just the title and first sentence or two got my mind racing; I’ll add a comment after watching the linked podcast, if needed. Because I’m battling the same, but dating from half a year BEFORE Christmas, re: losing a schedule (and low-carb diet focus, also) which had been going uncharacteristically well for me, but also beginning to, (during that same period,) anecdotally discover the truth of what you’re quantifying, here, regarding delaying oneself pleasures.
Just the fact I opened YOUR push notification this AM, not “scrolling” farter to open a transfixing but paralyzing next video morsel on our national decay, to await in terror the Day of the Lord (“YouTubers” & “Rumblers” & citizen journalists now so ably document the decline of our civilization & excesses of this past administration, (even when hopeful about the future) my opening your offering to READ it, shows the reward of “pushing back” and actually READING: which is part of your solution. Thanks again!
I have both an addition from my life explaining what broke up a positive routine I was becoming quite excited about for over 6 months; and also a reiteration of your theory, regarding food & motivation level.
Feeling the lack of preaching from the Old Testament in my current church, and almost an attack on it by a member of my previous Bible church, in favor of the 24/7 “Grace: I’m already heaven ready!” narrative which took over that church, I had begun for over a half year on FB, to summarize the daily One Year Bible Old & New Testament passages, and point out the intriguing parallel themes that “by chance” often occur when reading both an OT & NT passage daily; showing both important OT prophecies, being lived out today, AND the fact that God HASN’T really changed, and that backgound knowledge of the OT enhances faith…
My addition to your comments is that perfectionism then stifled this nascent ministry: (is producing the “perfect” writing also a dopamine stimulator?) —I had noticed that in a significant number of my posts, over a couple months, I’d inadvertently added the wrong daily title image to my posts: so the scriptures annotated on the title image didn’t match the ones discussed below! Mentally, I added to this failure the fact that I got little to no feedback, positive or negative, to my summaries, (or even a time consuming longer video version made while walking the dog daily,) and I then lost ALL MOTIVATION. I quit some months ago rather than “forgetting the past” and “pressing forward,” as Paul advises. The idea that someone might actually look, read. & find a confusingly wrongly-titled product, was just too hard on my pride, I hate to admit.
The experience I want to add which parallels yours, regards FASTING, which even secular society is now embracing, (for health reasons), with phone apps telling them when not to eat, etc.
I began fasting the first two meals on Tuesdays some months ago, which I called “two-fer-Tuesdays.” For Spiritual, and obeying-the-Bible reasons. Concurrently my wife and I went low-carb, and lost 28 and 20 lb respectively, pre-COVID… (Maybe a “God thing? —given the increased risk to the overweight?) —and found that just limiting one TYPE of food (starch and sugar) and avoiding certain aisles at the grocery, had value for us, in our rich Western environment with its unlimited food available.
The alarming prospect of a second Biden administration had me begin to, (perhaps pushing God around?) also additionally up to 3 additional days, 20 hours per day, by skipping the first two meals, during the half year run up to this election, praying when I remembered to, for the nation while working.
It was then I found my appreciation of the dinners my wife made increased amazingly. And, I was able to partake again of starch and sugar, during my one nightly meal, and not balloon in weight at the rate that I had been over the decades since I was a young adult.
In fact, my weight stayed steady, even eatinf normal amounts of carbohydrates—but as you noted, this Christmas season, and, in my case, the positive outcome of the election, —blew a hole in my fasting schedule.
So I am trying to recover! Reading your article has helped. And I will add to it a resolution of reading from a Charles Spurgeon anthology that I began, BEFORE I click on social media in the mornings.
Now I will try to watch your video!
Happy new year, and thanks again. I will post this now, then proofread it in notes, then edit it here…for typos and run-on sentences!
(I am using iPhone “notes” as a diary, and often blow a lot of time on that) But, it is so much more convenient than a paper diary.
I believe the Lord actually, this morning, put the word “journal“ into my mind, encouraging me to actually begin a paper journal. (Which I have done many times over the years)! But I’ve always lost my momentum on this. Perhaps the loss short term or recent memory characteristic of my age is the feature The Lord has used to get us to journal, for the future, for family whether foe the Christian parent, or RE the king’s rediscovery of Mordecai’a past good deed, or for any of the prophets who felt compelled to journal their visions and the words of The Lord, so precisely.
I posted this on FB, (not wanting to FLATTER, I hope!!)
“Go to Sarah Salviander, on Substack, and read “The Pleasure Trap,” —& watch the embedded video, from the famous author who publicized DOPAMINE.
We are a nation of ADDICTS, and Frito Lay, etc., only capitalize on the power of dopamine to make us crave “just one more,” in SO MANY areas of life depending on the individual’s responses, to the traps of alcohol, social media, romance novels, fentanyl, and even music: which all leave us unmotivated and apathetic, and procrastinators, unwilling to pursue life anymore, — when our pleasure source lets us down, by depleting dopamine, which is required to be in BALANCE —for us to even LIVE.
The advice of the “wisest man ever to live,” King Solomon, on this subject is applicable across the range of behaviors, from rage addiction to substance abuse, to craving social media accolades: “If you find honey, don’t eat too much,” (Or in the ESV, “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you,
lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” Proverbs 25:16) Not just talking about diabetes, here, either! —It applies to caffeine, speed, fentanyl, porn, romance novels, and the spectrum of pleasures —each very “individual”, of course!