In answer to the question put out by @abundance.tribe in this post by @trucklife-family, I want to tell you my personal perspective on life at present, particularly regarding my most positive and inspiring source of dopamine rush – otherwise known as excitement!
It is, after all, the brain chemistry that ignites our emotions and feelings of joy and sorrow in life. Most people are motivated by hormones, and sex drive is the primary motivation after food. But I’m very much over any need or dependence on sex, or the oxytocin and serotonin involved in sex life. I am trained as a monk in a yoga ashram, having spent ten years there in my youth, celibate from 19-29 years of age.
Thereafter and for the next few decades sex was still addictive, as it is in all of us. But now in my early fifties, I have returned to the celibate path for the past few years. This is the natural journey all aspiring spiritualists take according the Vedas and the Vedic tradition. So sex does not excite me. I have grown out of it, thanks to knowledge and training.
Naturally food is exciting to us all too. One of the greatest pleasures is of the tongue. In fact the Vedas talk of the straight line between the tongue, belly and genitals. And the tongue is the most voracious and uncontrollable. Even when the belly is full, the tongue is excited by new tastes.
I still love food, but am happy to eat the same dish every breakfast and dinner for seven days a week now. So food is no longer a major source of excitement. And let’s be honest when we analyze ourselves regarding the dopamine release from the pleasures of food.
Once you have mastered the desires of the tongue, belly and genitals, thus entering the realm of human and not merely a polished animal, then there may be other sources of excitement to be discovered. To be honest, I am stimulated to a point of excitement by dance and music, and the great outdoors. I still have basic pleasures, and those are my favorites.
Obviously meditation, particularly “bhajan”, which involves the group chanting and singing to rhythmic percussion and melodic harmonium, is a primary source of bliss, at it uplifts the state of consciousness like little else. But excitement – a release of dopamine – comes from listening to my favorite dance music on headphones while walking and hiking about on the vast open remote rocky shoreline of the Cape south coast of Africa, where I live.
That is my source of inspiration and cause of excitement. Some go jogging. I go dancing. In this way both hemispheres of my brain are engaged in a full spectrum, full brain experience. Gamma brainwaves are activated and a state of bliss is achieved. I do it my way.
And I’m repeatedly awed by the beauty of nature all around me, with no people at all, and only me and the pure natural elements of sea, rock, air and sunlight. By putting on my favorite dance tunes of the day, and walking or even jogging along, my step turns into a dance, in time to the beat, and I am uplifted to a state of blissful excitement. What a rush.
I climb dangerous and rugged cliffs without paths, and am able to explore and discover rocky beaches where few if any people go. And I need to do it every 48 hours. I wake up on the day and am filled with excitement anticipating my approaching hike of the day. It’s the similar region and same route and the same pastime, often with similar music, but the space is so majestic and pure and primal, that I relish it time and time again, never tiring of the different angles of same view.
It feels like paradise to me. Being in touch with pure nature like this, is like being in a temple or sacred space for me. It is the divine creation all around me, unchanged for millions of years. This is where I glimpse the divine in everything. And that is what really excites me – a glimpse of the divine. Nothing else will suffice. There is no substitute. And it’s free and always available.
(photos my own)