The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity--and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race Paperback – September 3, 2019

This book review took me a full week to write. Every time I sat down to collect my thoughts my phone would ping with a message from a friend and I would get swept up in whatever their drama was. One of those days I got a message from a young woman on a dating app, and the idea of meeting her for dinner consumed my mind to the point where I wrote nothing at all. Although frustrating, now that I am on day five of attempting to write this review, I have come to find it precisely appropriate that the dopamine mechanism in my brain kept me distracted for a full week. But let’s get to it.Look at everything in your immediate vicinity. The chair you’re sitting on, the screen you’re reading this off of, the few other things you can smell and touch; this is your here and now. Everything else is inspired and manipulated by dopamine. Even an object that is across the room (one that you can see), the desire to go and pick it up is driven by dopamine, because dopamine is the molecule that allows us to imagine a potential future. It makes you believe that whatever you have at present is not as good as what you could potentially have later. Is the steak you’re eating for dinner right now really that good, or will the pizza you’ve got planned for tomorrow night be better? Have you finally found love, or is there a person even more suitable to you still out there waiting to be met and courted? Is this book review a good one, or will the next book be more interesting?One of the most intriguing lessons I learned from this book was the connection between dopamine and creativity. Dopamine is the all important chemical for planning things in the future, and creativity is literally the process of imagining something new and creating it, therefore it makes sense that creative people have been found to have larger (or more populous) dopamine receptors in their brains. The world of science is similar. Scientists ask questions, imagine potential futures, and go in search of answers. Scientists have similarly been found to have more dopamine in their brains than the average person. Sometimes this can be a scary thing; how many great artists and scientists from history do we know who have had addictions or compulsions they were perpetually unable to overcome? Picasso and Einstein, both geniuses in their respective fields, are known to have philandered about with a variety of women (despite both being married several times throughout their lives). The line between madness and genius can indeed be a thin one. Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and economics, and also lived with schizophrenia (he is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind based on the book of the same name). There is a story about Nash in which he is asked how he can possibly believe that he is being contacted by aliens, to which he responds: “the ideas I have about supernatural beings come to me the same way that my mathematical ideas do.”Another interesting anecdote is the idea that almost anything can become addicting if it triggers your dopamine circuits. I experienced this myself one year when I went on four separate multi-day vacations each precisely one month apart. After returning home from the fourth trip, I spent an entire week planning number five until I eventually talked myself out of it. I have personally found it true that any repeated behavior that gives me a positive hit of dopamine can become something that I crave again and again. For some people it’s an injection of heroin, for others it’s getting on an airplane to a vacation destination.Here’s a question: Does Steven King still enjoy writing scary books? Or is he just chasing another dopamine hit? Do you think Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks still enjoy making movies, or are they simply looking for the rush of excitement they get from the next great script to be sent their way? Does Bob Dylan still get the same satisfaction from performing that he used to? Or is his dopamine drip firmly in control, always pushing him to play another show?Our authors mirror all of this research with a study done on happiness, in which they found that people were less happy when their mind was wandering. “It didn’t matter what the activity was. Whether they were eating, working, watching TV, or socializing, they were happier if they were paying attention to what they were doing.” Especially with the rise of social media platforms, a lot of time spent mentally wandering is time spent comparing yourself to others who probably have more of what you want (or what you think you want). These platforms, and our cell phones in general, are the most addicting things ever invented—every ping triggers our dopamine receptors. The researchers concluded that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Living in the moment makes a human happy, as does appreciating what you already have and doing your best not to pine for more. Turns out all of those spiritual gurus really are on to something!On the one hand, dopamine has made us Homo Sapiens the dominate species on the planet by giving our ancestors “the ability to create tools, invent abstract sciences, and plan far into the future.” We have brought into being a world in which buildings scrape the skies, the internet unites communities across the oceans, and 8 billion humans coexist relatively peacefully. We have achieved wondrous accomplishments thanks to our internal desires for a better and more comfortable life. The question on the other hand, however, is where does it end? Our authors cautious us, noting that “in an environment of plenty in which we have mastered our world and developed sophisticated technology—in a time when more is no longer a matter of survival—dopamine continues to drive us forward, perhaps to our own destruction.”Obviously we cannot renounce all sensual pleasures and plans for the future, we are not Buddha. We want things in life for ourselves and our loved ones and we want to contribute to the betterment and advancement of society. But we can recognize our addictions and find balance. Personally, I have gotten into the habit of leaving my phone on silent. In the past it was only when I was watching a movie or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but now I leave it silenced almost exclusively. I don’t want my phone to be in charge of telling me when some ‘important’ message comes my way; I check my phone when I want to, not the other way around. It’s one small step towards living in the moment. (Don’t worry Mom, I got all six of your voicemails and I will call you back.) Are there areas of your life that you keep going back to, despite the knowledge that it is unhealthy for your mind or body? Dopamine is the molecule of more, which means the most important question to answer is this: When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental? That is stability.

Super interesting read. The connection between dopamine and success is real, and the author opens up a rabbit hole on the topic.

A very readable book which gives fascinating insights into how the human mind works and just how much of our behaviour is influenced by biology. Here's a scientific basis for why we often feel unsatisfied and keep chasing more - more things, more thrills, more success. The authors also give some very straightforward and practical ideas for achieving balance, with the potential to improve our individual happiness as well as the health of the planet.My only complaint was that I wanted more details about how dopamine circuits actually work; the book glossed over the technical details to focus on the practical effects. Having said that, they give lots of recommendations for further reading should you want to delve deeper into the technicalities.

Excerpts from the Molecule of MoreThe main idea of the book, balancing our Here and Now enjoyment with our dopamine-driven plan to have a happier life.Topics of this book are my favorite. The seven chapters are about love, drug, domain, creativeness, politics, progress, and harmony.Love that lasts shift the emphasis from anticipation to experience; from the fantasy of anything being possible to engagement with reality and all its imperfections. P 13The transition is difficult. P13Highly driven women and men sometimes find it a significant challenge to turn off their thoughts and just experience the sensations of intimacy — to think less and feel more. P21The sensation of wanting is not a choice you make. It is a reaction to the things you encounter. P31Government is about control. [Law is the least tyranny. but ] Many laws benefit some people but harm others. P174Politics is about change. Change is stressful. P175 / P187Identifying ourselves with our dopamine circuits traps us in a world of speculation and possibility, The concrete world of here and now is disdained, ignored, or even feared, because we cannot control it. We can only control the future, and giving up control is not something dopaminergic creatures like to do. But none of it is real. Even a future one second away is unreal. It is only the stark facts of the present that are real, facts that must be accepted as they are, facts that cannot be modified by a hair's breadth to suit our needs. This is the world of reality. The future, where dopaminergic creatures live their lives, is a world of phantoms. P201-202

This book is what I want more nonfiction books to be like. A bunch of studies related to dopamine are explained. Each study's underlying scientific principles, original hypotheses, and possible interpretations are summarized, and each study is used to demonstrate how dopamine affects the many facets of humanity. I appreciated how the equipment used in the research or how the data is collected was always explained. The book is also written in a very accessible way and is a very pleasant read.The book goes over a broad range of topics, such as politics, culture, mental disorders, creativity, and achieving happiness. It slowly builds evidence that much of what we see in our lives is the result of dopamine or the lack thereof. I personally see the subjects brought up upon in the book through the lens the book is written in now, and I am glad that I have a more informed and nuanced interpretation. The book uncovers the hidden world of dopamine very well, and I am eager to try out the lessons taught in the book for myself.

Simple and well written, informative and academic. An excellent choice, for all readers! I would totally recommend it! Thank you!

So many things I didn't understand before reading this. What great joy of learning and enlightening came from my reading this.

excellent