Understanding our brain on desire
Meditations on planning, dreaming and overriding our base desire for predictability
Understanding our brain on desire
The brain is wired to seek novelty. When something new pops up (a notification, a headline, a banner), your dopamine system lights up. And dopamine isn’t just about pleasure; it’s about anticipation. In other words, it’s the thrill of what might be next that hooks you.
“These detours from daily routine are, in fact, the signature moments of her life.”
- In This Essay I Will: On Distraction
“The fugitive moments in between our lifelong undertakings, whatever their ultimate worth, may be what we are searching for all along.”
- In This Essay I Will: On Distraction
Maybe we find life in the little pockets that swell between our ambitions.
Now that I no longer work a forty-hour-a-week job, I tell many people I am writing a book. It is going along, I say, but slowly. How is it that so many chores, parties, trips, assignments, and plainly wasted hours intervene? Not everyone is distracted from their most cherished goals. But I think everyone is distracted from something—it is desire’s
... See moreLife as a series of projects
“Goals are projects that lost their soul to a productivity app. Projects are what happen when your creativity puts on its best outfit and choses violence.”
- Be more confusing, actually (Substack)
“Their soul” being the enthusiasm of pursuit, flattened into a checkbox that feels ticked the second you write it down. We microdose achievement through
... See moreFor the Moment:
(micro-wins for the distracted brain)
name the impulse. when you feel the urge to switch tasks or check your phone, pause and label it - distraction impulse. tiny acts of awareness reactivate the prefrontal cortex and can give you back the freedom of choice.
start by changing the channel, not the habit. often times, the brain isn’t
“You’re not just planning habits, you’re planning a self who never gets tired.”
- the 2am urge to reinvent your entire life (Substack)
plan for the lowest version of you.
The one who’s tired, overstimulated, and slightly dehydrated. If that version wouldn’t follow the routine, it won’t last.
- the 2am urge to reinvent yourself (Substack)