Rope-a-dopamine

Thanks for the kind emails and comments about the last newsletter. For anyone who found it a bit much, I don't blame you! I also find it pretty full-on to dig up life traumas large and small and put them on public display. But if I don't write these things, I feel like I can't write anything at all: it all starts to feel somehow false. Either way, I'm back this week with what you probably signed up for: subjecting myself to a goofy self-improvement trend to see what happens.

It's time for a dopamine detox.

Let's get the entirely appropriate cynicism out of the way first. "Dopamine detox" is possibly the worst possible name for something you'd willingly do to yourself. It's terrible on many levels, not least of which is that dopamine isn't a toxin and it's not something you can choose to go without. It's like talking about having an air detox, or being addicted to water – a contradiction in terms, one of those category errors so egregious you can think of them as "not even wrong."

Out of morbid curiosity, I asked our friendly neighbourhood neuroscientist Lee Reid what would happen if you could fast from dopamine. It wouldn't be fun. If all the dopamine somehow abruptly left your brain, "I think you would just die," he says, thoughtfully. "Or you'd go into catatonia." If you gradually tapered off dopamine to nothing, it would still be horrible: you'd slowly lose the ability to move properly, or at all; you would lose your sense of smell, you'd go into painful spasms, and there's plenty more. It turns out that the effects of a lack of dopamine on the human body are best illustrated by either advanced Parkinson's disease or the film (based on the book by neurologist Oliver Sacks) Awakenings.

Of course, no one really intends to reduce dopamine levels, or at least I hope they don't. What's actually being peddled is the very ancient practice of asceticism, abstinence from worldly pleasures. The tradition is long, and full of monks. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Stoicism: practically all major religions and schools of philosophical thought have at some point identified that trying to perpetuate pleasure makes life less fun. And they're right! It's one of those rare topics where religion, philosophy and science seem in perfect agreement. The silly "dopamine detox" name is acting as a pop-science catch-all. Like a billion other wellness fads, it sounds just science-y enough to make people feel like they're in on something, despite the ludicrous complexity of the human brain and the fact that the multivariate role of neurotransmitters is nowhere near fully understood. Dopamine detoxing is branding, and it runs the full spectrum of legitimacy. For some, it's a great way to sell books, or as a hook for therapy: for a growing army of product-peddlers and influencers, it's grist for the grift mill. In a (highly ironic) race for likes and subscribes, influencers and advertisers are trying to one-up each others' prescribed asceticism, and freely adding in toxic nonsense from the testosterone-maximising manosphere or whatever other insecurity they're playing up. This ad I got served up on Instagram a while back is a really good example of the state of things:

With that said, just because this innocent neurotransmitter has been fixated on by an army of influencers doesn't mean that compulsive pleasure-seeking via our devices – aka scrolling – isn't a problem. At least, it is for me, and as my newsletter is supposed to be about trying out various self-improvement trends and/or grifts and reporting back, I thought I should give it a shot.

I know what my low-key hedonism-procrastination cocktail looks like, and it's the same as everyone else: video games and aimless internet news consumption plus social media scrolling. I've written plenty about both, and the absurd time-sink that they represent. If I'm being honest, I've known quite well that I need to either quit or markedly reduce my use since I began writing this – and if I'm being still more honest, well before that. I don't care all that much about the supposed lifestyle benefits of dopamine detox. I want what I always have: to stop wasting so much time on the internet and do things I care about instead.

The self-imposed rules of my dopamine detox are pretty simple: I don't play video games or go on social media for two weeks. That's it. Computers are still fine, else I couldn't do my job (or write this.) Instant messaging is still fine, as is reading books on my phone or listening to podcasts. Posting is encouraged, as the whole point is to make stuff, and hopefully it'll be less reacting to things I've seen online and more posting projects I'm working on or just stuff I'm enjoying. In fact, because I am a giant nerd, I'm trialling out a microblogging service that syndicates posts to Bluesky and Mastodon. You can read it here.

Josh Drummond

Josh Drummond

When possible, I like to try doing things before telling you about them, and I've been at this detox for a little over a week now. As usual, there have been no miracles: just a bit more stuff getting done. It's pretty much exactly what I wanted. I'll report back more fully in another seven days. If I start posting regularly, you can be pretty sure that it's worked beyond my wildest dreams.

Links & stuff

Now that I've talked about how I'm avoiding news and social media and insinuated that you might want to do the same, here's some news and social media.

I like bike

My friend Robbie wrote a fantastic guest post a while back about grappling with masculinity and now he's embarked on the incredibly self-improving venture of being the first trans person to cycle around the entire land surface of the world. He is, without exception, the most metal guy I've ever met. Kindly like and subscribe to all his stuff.

7,500km across North America

One quarter of a Guinness World Record later, it’s day 86, and I’m in Europe without my bike.

Danger is my middle nameRobbie Danger

Gotta go fast

I really liked this YouTube video when I watched it a few weeks back. Clickbait thumbnail aside, it's the antithesis of today's hyper-fast retention-editing-driven YouTube culture. It's just a guy talking through the pros and cons of creating "content" while playing Sonic the Hedgehog 1. I loved it, not least because watching was completely optional. It could have been a podcast.

If I was ever to start making videos again – have I mentioned I had a YouTube channel? I can't remember – this would be how I'd like to do it. Speaking of the many, many YouTube videos with completely optional visuals, here is an app to turn any YouTube video (or videos) into a podcast.

Listen and publish YouTube shows as podcasts

Listenbox provides an easy way to play YouTube in the background using any podcast app

Listenbox

Cat update

Remember the tiny kitten I rescued from the side of the road that was so comprehensively black we named him Pango? This was him then:

And this is what he looks like now. It's like someone used a Moonstone on him.

It was too late to change the name so we didn't. The vet says he's part Maine Coon, which is where the ear tufts and colouring comes from. Apparently, this coat is called Black Smoke, so the name still fits. Also, he was kind of bitey because he didn't know how to cat properly, so we got him a friend to see if it settled him down. Luckily, it did. This is Ned Flanders.

Like and subscribe

I know, it's like rain on your wedding day. But if this newsletter can be one of those things that enhances your life rather than leaving you feeling depleted, it's working. If you find it helpful, or unhelpful yet funny, please share it around. Or don't! It can also be something you keep secret and safe, like the One Ring except it's just an email.

I have incorrectly decided that reading and replying to comments doesn't count as part of my dopamine detox so hopefully I will see you there.