Is it wrong though? Seeing new things makes you less happier because it will be hardder for you to be happy. Imagine your childhood, you became happy for smaller things right? Wouldnt you want that to continue throughout your life or at least to some degree. Look at this child, www.reddit.com/r/…/istambul_ice_cream/ he is so happy. Now, would you be happy as that child ever again this simply? No, because you have seen more than him. We do everything to be happy in the end.
Comment on To those who think that you should experience everything in the world at least once:
Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
The reason you “should experience everything at least once” is not for happiness reasons, it’s so that you have a diverse set of experiences to draw from that makes you more prepared for every other new experience. The more you have already experienced, the more you can talk with people about things, the more you understand about the world, the more open you are.
Seeing new things as “just a way for Dopamine to be generated” is too single-dimensional.
Kinkisthebest@lemmy.org 2 days ago
Lemvi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Children experience more extreme emotions in general, not just happiness. Think of the tantrums they throw.
And honestly, no, my main goal isn’t to blindly chase dopamine.
For one, happiness is more complex than that, you cannot just reduce it to one hormone (e.g. what about serotonin or oxytocin?)
Secondly, I think experience and personal development are important, they put happiness into perspective and let you appreciate it better. Leaving your comfort zone can be deeply rewarding, even if it doesn’t immediately result in a dopamine boost.
I can confidently say that I am happier now than I was as a child, despite the fact I now laugh less.
Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
You know your point with the child defeats itself, right? The only reason the child was this happy about the ice cream was because it did a new thing (getting ice cream from the funny ice cream man). If it would have followed your theory, it should have never had this ice cream experience, as to keep the potential of being this excited? It just doesn’t make any sense, it basically means you’d never be this happy for ice cream because you’d never do it.
Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
If you’d like my personal experience:
My parents offered me money (if not much else), and always encouraged me to do new things. As a result, I did a lot of different things in my life, in fact, it’ll be hard for you to name any one “common” thing I haven’t done.
Now I play video games most of my time, and I have a lot of fun doing that. I enjoy cooking a good meal. I love looking at a sunset. All the different experiences I had led to me being able to enjoy the repetitive, same things. I don’t mind not doing many different things. I have no regrets.
So while I’m sure what you say can be true for some person, for me, it is definitely not. I’m not any more bored with the same old things than I was before doing everything. I’m very happy just doing few things, I don’t need a new thing every day to be happy. At the same time, if an opportunity presents itself, that I morally agree with, I don’t fear to take it, I don’t say “oh if I do this new thing the old things will be boring”, I just take the opportunity and later go back to the old thing, as happy as before.
Kinkisthebest@lemmy.org 1 day ago
I was actually talking about things that bring happiness fastly like drugs but i think i should have explicitly stated that.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 day ago
“Blinkered Philistine thinking”
“Drugs” do all sorts of things, not “bring happiness fastly”.
Some may cause euphoria, some may induce a sense of calm, some may cause disassociation, some may may make you more open - and each one is a slightly different experience for each person because of individual biochemistry and personal experience.
As my hillbilly family would say “you’re talkin’ outta yer ass”.
Your hubris is astounding.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
There are so many different types of drugs though.
Psychedelics are typically classified as drugs, for instance. Mushrooms show long term benefits after a single use, MDMA is closer to a stimulant dopamine blast, and LSD has been described as just fun. That’s a lot of variance in one category, but I still wouldn’t say people that do acid generally have issues with chasing quick highs compared to people that munch shrooms.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 days ago
Well said. And I believe those diverse experiences will be what makes you less likely to endulge in blind consumerism… I mean if you just eat the standard stuff, buy the standard things, live the standard life… That’s likely gonna be what society will push down on you. And we live in a consumerist society… So the one way out of it is to explore things beyond… Find out what you want, and not what people want to sell to you… And many of the really good experiences come for free, anyway. Having friends, enjoying a day… That’s not necessarily about money. And you’re also allowed to once and again not have french fries like any other day.