The pupils dilate. The rush of expectation met and satisfied.
Everyone who’s done coke knows this: the expectation of the rush is as rewarding as the dopamine hit itself. Maybe more.
In a Behaviorist universe, we’ve come to understand the world in terms of this simple mechanism: supply and demand. We’ve stripped ourselves down, re-purposed myths of spirit, turned ourselves into machines. And we’re machines driven by mechanical hungers, rewarded by chemical combinations.
I could be describing a junky scoring their next fix, or of the promise of seduction rewarded. I could be describing the satisfaction we receive when our virtual characters level up, or when we vanquish virtual enemies with our vorpal sword of badassness. (Some of us will even ostensibly sell our children for in-game currency). Hollywood has devised various formulas involving the offset of expectation and the big payoff: the protagonist “gets the girl,” the “bad guys” are destroyed by the hero after a fierce struggle.
Read the full article on The Nervous Breakdown.
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