Week Four---The Pattern of Life ....

Is there a drug around for just about everything? ....In our highly medicalized culture, if there is not a drug for something, some one is sure to invent and market it---it is only a matter of time. In some scenarios, drugs are highly appropriate. For example, terminal illness and pain management in the latter stages. I am especially boggled by the medicalization of childbirth, that hospital birth and drugs are a standard birth plan (But check-in with me on the drugs part again after I have actually experienced childbirth---I am willing to concede on that.). Pills and potions aside. Aberrant behaviours that threaten the 'moral fabric' of our society are usually labeled as 'disorders'. Alcoholism. Gambling. Obesity. Homosexuality. The masses are controlled via television and most are hooked, passively entertained into submission. Drugged on snack food. And when many opt to leave the house and get some fresh air ...they go to mall and fight for that parking space closest to the entrance. Retail therapy. And I can not say that I never engage in one or the other---but I often feel sick afterwards, like I have overdosed on pacification.

Can we raise our levels of dopamine ourselves? ....I don't see why not. If the neurotransmitter dopamine is explicitly linked to human happiness, which comes first---the feeling of happiness, or the dopamine uptake? From a TCM perspective, the organs are affected by our emotions ....but our emotions also affect our organs. Repressed anger could cause damage to the liver; and liver damage may cause us to feel very irritated. In the West, feelings are usually associated with the brain, our 'central processing system'. If we feel happiness, it is thought that we feel it because of a complex chemical reaction in our brains. Neurons firing. Fireworks. To me, feelings are much more than chemical reactions in the brain. If we create a life for ourselves that is conducive to personal happiness (fulfilling relationships, goals, a functional belief system, etc...) then yes---perhaps we can increase our levels of dopamine ourselves. But also our greater sense of happiness.

How do you think humans and chimps diverged as species? .....Given that the fossil record is incomplete, my inferences are just as good as any biologists (Except I am far less invested in this evolutionary mystery---it is not my life's work afterall.). In my view, given the evidence that I have come across both independently and in class, humans and chimps are very likely derived from the same species. There is at least fair argument for the existence of a common ancestor. And the fact that humans and chimps may have continued to interbreed after the species had diverged is not at all surprising. I can see how some people might receive such a claim as blasphemy ...but it is not like a modern day human was breeding with a modern day chimp---this was millions of years ago. And with that, humans and chimps may have lived in environmental conditions that would foster such interactions. It seems only natural that they would continue to interbreed for some time.