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The most common human experience is powerlessness… Powerless in the face of outside and inside forces…
Humans are a weird animal. They consider themselves smart… but smart people don’t act like victims. They are proud of their big brains… but don’t use it.
The dividing line between being a lower species and a higher species is the ability to take responsibility for one’s actions, for one’s life.
But responsibility is an inner dialog…using that big brain to actually get some clarity about what that lower species self is doing, has done, is planning, so one can take over and drive that life of yours.
The reason people live as if they were a passenger in their own life is because the lower inclinations are more than willing to drive that life.
Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain.
The racket, that ultimately wants to avoid responsibility is a lower species phenomenon, a machine, that is more than willing and ready to drive that life.
The inner conversation that I encourage you to have swaps out the lower species and puts YOU into the driver’s seat…
- so you can live a life of your design not the lower species’ design.
- So you can do what YOU said you would do, not the pleasure seeking/pain avoiding species.
- So you can have the pleasure of your choosing: accomplishment, achievement, real love, real companionship, real health… not what the pleasure seeking lower species wants that is self-destructive, because the lower species self doesn’t care about health, wealth, accomplishment, YOU… it doesn’t care at all.
It’s taken someone with a 160 IQ who has struggled all his life to live the higher species’ life, while falling back, regularly, to the lower species’ life.
Very remarkable. Rare. An individual who has his eyes open while his life is used by the lower species self… An individual who doesn’t go all the way into unconsciousness and passenger mode… so he can and could wrestle the driver’s seat back from the lower species self.
This inner and invisible drama should be new to you. It is even quite new to me.
I was looking last night, in the dark… how come I am not ravaged by this lower self to the same degree as some others.
I contemplated that maybe it is the level of desire that is the indicator of a very active pleasure seeking activity, dopamine seeking activity in people.
Muscletest says it is.
I have had periods of debauchery in my life, and they destroyed me and my relationships, put my career in danger, my health as well… but I wasn’t conscious, neither were my ‘advisors’ or the doctors… So I never learned what this dude, Alex Becker has… because unlike me, he went to the edge (beyond where I have ever gone), and came back ready to share what he saw.
In the past 39 years, ever since I left Hungary where I had the luxury to ‘lose it’ and be rescued, I haven’t gone on serious binges of any kind…
And slowly and methodically I reduced my desire and my activities to where I can almost never go on a binge, or when I do, it is never longer than a day.
Instead of seeking pleasure in trite things, like chatting, eating, sex, parties, I have been able to get pleasure in doing what is mine to do, doing what is accomplishment.
I didn’t realize that my unwillingness to fantasize, to imagine success has been a crucial element in this.
The brain doesn’t know the difference between imagined and real.
That sounds like a good thing, but it is a really bad thing.
People are encouraged by ‘teachers’ to imagine success, indulge in it.
Mind movies, for example. Vision boards, for example. Or even Psycho Cybernetics.
There are probably many more… but I have never liked these… I instinctively I dialed imagination down, even if for some reason I had to do them.
What happens when you whip yourself in a 
frenzy of what you want? What you desire?
The moment it is built in your mind, you stop going for it. You’ve already squeezed all the dopamine out of it that can be easily gotten… and doing the actual work, that may take years… the lower species self doesn’t go for it.
I watched one of my coaches yesterday (Tom) squirm. I bet someone told him to imagine the future… So he had his session teaching us to imagine a future, and from that deduce what we need to start doing today.
But he went into the desire trap: millions, billions, fame and fortune… and he primed the dopamine ‘button’… and it will be hard for him to do anything in that future’s direction… because now his whole being is directed to the easy pleasure path. It will be interesting to watch.
Another coach of mine (Ben) is in that same trap, and it is highly visible what is his method of getting easy dopamine: he rails against everything and everyone… Dopamine… yeah.
I am looking at my life now, and my numbers.
My desire number is still 10%, but my ambition dropped to 30%. It used to be 70%.
The two numbers (new interpretation) show how you are getting dopamine… pleasure.
I still get most of it through work… but much less.
I get pleasure from tea with milk… I find myself scrambling to find new sources of sugar free chocolate, that I don’t even really enjoy… more and more violent books… so yeah, I am on a slippery slope.
I don’t believe in dopamine detox…where you expect your lower species self to shrink away and not call the shot.
Brain chemistry
I have decades of painful experience with bipolar, mine and and expert.
Although staying up for 36 hours starts to turn the brain chemicals in the right direction, unless the person starts going to bed and getting up at the same time, the sensitive balance in the brain can flip out again.
I remember before I started to take Lithium Orotate, a chemical to support brain chemical balance. I could just fall off the wagon one time, sleep in just one weekend, and I was already well on my way to a depressive episode.
The desire/ambition numbers faithfully and accurately show the brain imbalances, how the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) shift towards the lower species self… or the higher species self.
- Ambition is the pleasure you are able and willing to get from work. From getting things done. From learning something. From accomplishing, building something. Slow and tedious.
- Desire is the pleasure you hope to get from stuff that is fast, easy, and destructive.
And unless you weed out those fast and easy dopamine sources, you can never fully drive your life, you’ll always be a passenger in a life driven by the lower species self: going for quick pleasure, avoiding any discomfort.
Muscletest says that Lithium Orotate can help everyone who wants to regain their control over their life… Help you, not do for you. You still have to do the work.
So how does Lithium Orotate work?
This is not scientific… this is how I see it: it lowers the amount of Dopamine you get from pleasure seeking activity.
One of my students, who much like Alex Becker, can play computer games for many hours… bringing a bucket to the computer, so they don’t even have to stop when they have to piss… has been taking Lithium Orotate for a little while.
Muscletest says that he is getting less intense Dopamine Rush from gaming. I can only tell, without seeing what he does, that he is getting markedly more intelligent, he has kept his responsibility gene on, and he is doing things for himself in a more relaxed, less ‘I have to!’ way…
I haven’t slipped into depression or into a manic state for years now.
Another student is showing signs of more balance, and more willingness to experiment and get things done. He also kept the responsibility gene on…
Lithium Orotate is outlawed in some countries…
…because it allows people to be more balanced, and have less impulsive behavior, like buying stuff they don’t need and can’t afford.
Countries run by the oligarchy won’t agree to that.
So I am certain that taking 1-2 tiny tablets a day can increase your ambition score, and can lower your desire score.
I have measured people who claimed in a youtube video that they did a successful Dopamine Detox, and didn’t see, didn’t notice a change in their ambition/desire numbers, before and after. Not even Alex Becker.
Alex Becker needed to reduce his dopamine sources to nothing other than work…
Empty house. No music. No cell phone. No socializing. Living on chicken and spinach. and water to drink.
I don’t think many people are willing to do that… he did, and he channeled all that pleasure seeking inclination to become very very very successful in business… I’ve known him for a decade, he is not faking it. Near or in the billion dollar category.
He keeps his attention ONLY on what he is doing, not where he is going. And he doesn’t celebrate, rejoice, brag about, blog about, youtube about his incremental successes… so he doesn’t get dopamine beyond the doing of it.
It suddenly explains why very high achievers opt to wake up real early, several hours before others wake up: they have less dopamine inducing activities available to them, so they work.
OK, now with that said, what should you do?
First you want to evaluate your lifestyle and see what pleasure seeking activities you engage in regularly. Just make a list. Mark those that you are willing to consider cutting out.
Mindless TV, cat videos, conspiracy theories, arguing, eating crap…
By the way: eating.
All grains are dopamine producers in the brain. All grains. Sugar as well… including juice, and even whole fruits. They are not activities, but list these as well. Any grain… even oatmeal… but especially wheat.
It is not the gluten that makes wheat a life-destroyer on the planet… it is grains’ dopamine inducing nature…
I am going out on a limb saying that humanity started its descent when wheat farming was started.
I’ll make some measurements at another time, for now I am most interested in you finding out what keeps you stuck in an underachiever joyless state.
Joy and pleasure don’t come from the same place. In fact pure pleasure is always joyless…
Joy comes from a different brain chemical that is antagonistic with Dopamine.
OK, Your most important job is to make that list…
Now, I bet, you’ll leave out all the invisible dynamics that are dopamine inducing, like being right, making another wrong, getting off the hook, winning, avoid losing, avoid domination, dominating…
If you pay attention, these are the ‘payoffs’ of the racket.
So we can safely say that the racket is a dopamine seeking machine.
It is not interested in you being joyful, living a great life, having good relationships, or being healthy. It is only interested in pleasure seeking.
You can learn more about the racket in the 3-video course. I am also going to add a live session, for free to include current findings…
And you can also come to a live workshop where we won’t much talk about racket, instead we’ll examining the rackets of the participants… Expect amazing insights.
The workshop is tomorrow, Saturday, October 16, 4 pm my time, 10 pm in Europe. It is $10, or $5 if you also buy the racket course.
A workshop is not a ‘teaching’ course, it is an experiential event. And because each person has many rackets, each person can benefit from regularly coming to a workshop where we dig out, unconceal one of those… Then there are two weeks for the participant to deal with what that means to their lives… Each exposed racket can make your life a whole lot better… not accidentally. It is because it pulls a source of indecent pleasure, a dopamine source, that has been using your life for its own purposes.
If you are not where you want to be in life, you can bet your sweet ass that you have many rackets… some stronger than others. You can bet that you have been giving up success, joy, health, relationships, for the sick pleasure of making someone wrong, or getting off the hook, or dominating… the payoffs of the racket.
You’ll thank me after the workshop, I promise. If you don’t like it, I give your money back. No problem.
Get the racket courseor
Just get the workshop on Saturday
Get your workshopPS: Alex’s video in today’s article is only 10% true… so don’t start doing the crazy thing he is doing: it won’t work for you.
