When was the last time you felt your soul being expressed? When was the last time you cried with joy? Wrote poetry? Made music? Danced in the rain? Baked a pie? Painted anything? Hiked up a hill? Swam naked? Communed with nature? Searched for God? — Neal Donald Walsch

Modern life is making us unhappy. It has normalized the never-ending pursuit of more. Our wanting leads to striving and our striving feels necessary because we are so disconnected from the natural life — the simple pleasures that have guided our intentions for all of human history.

We’ve forgotten our roots. The connection with nature that used to guide our actions has been replaced with mental narratives.

The average person’s living situation has become so wrapped up with digital interfaces and commercial influences that they can no longer exist in the present moment — enjoying it as it is and for what it is.

The quiet and focused mind is nowhere to be found. Stillness is difficult to achieve even in the most peaceful of environments. We find ourselves with the urge to think or do, but never to be.

This is the curse of modern man—the tragedy of modern life.

The Addiction Economy

We’ve been unwittingly attending an addiction boot camp, a training program designed to harness the functioning of the brain’s reward circuits for control and suppression.

From our earliest years, we’ve been trained to seek out rewards in the form of high-dopamine-releasing products and activities. The modern economy is driven by it:

Social media, junk food, gambling, drugs, fame, career success, shopping, conflict, travel, stimulating entertainment, just to name a few…

We’ve become reliant on these hits. The pursuit of them is the very reason for our existence. Motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

But the pleasure we receive from them is short-lived and empty. We’re driven ferociously towards the high and then left cold in the aftermath. The only way to counter the shivering bleakness is to jump straight back on the craving train and head for the next hit.

We’re enrolled in this torturous cycle and don’t even realise the full extent to which these forces are controlling our lives. And the biggest problem is that this way of living has become so normalized that it no longer even appears to be a choice. It’s just the way life is.

The good news — it is a choice.

We can break ourselves out of the wheel of addiction, but it requires an awareness of the problem, some serious willpower, and the courage to make long-term decisions that will lead us toward a more natural future.

The Natural Alternatives

Our need for dopamine-releasing experiences isn’t negative. It’s a natural part of human life. The problem arises when we become reliant on powerful manufactured hits to give us our sense of meaning.There are many other more natural forms of dopamine that have formed the basis of our lives for thousands of years:

Time in nature, family, friendship, healthy food, exercise, intellectual curiosity, creativity, spirituality and helping others.

Unlike manufactured sources of dopamine, these natural alternatives are subtle and less addictive. They provide us with a slow-releasing form of pleasure that is often hard-earned, but long-lasting and meaningful.

Taking advantage of these forms of natural dopamine will actually make your life more fulfilling, in the same way they did for our ancestors. Creating a life around these things and consistently engaging with them, will raise your baseline happiness over time and eventually allow you to truly love and appreciate your existence.

What makes a return to these natural forms of dopamine so difficult for the modern person is that we’re already hooked on the flashing lights and powdered sweetness of modern culture.

Our ability to get pleasure from the natural, lower dopamine-releasing activities has been nulled because they don’t immediately live up to what we’ve become accustomed to. We have eaten the apple from the Tree of Life and are now seemingly lost chasing apples for eternity.

This isn’t helped by the fact that businesses are financially incentivised to sell the most addictive dopamine-releasing products possible. This is the best way to keep the customer coming back for more. It’s the easiest way to make the most money, and therefore, it’s these types of products we see marketed to us most often.

After all, it’s difficult to sell nature, friends, or creativity. The healthy non-addictive dopamine sources are natural and don’t easily fit with the consumer world we have built for ourselves.

And yet, it’s these simple pleasures of life that are going to provide us with the most meaning and satisfaction. They’re the essence of what makes life worth living.

Disconnection From the Self

What has gotten us into this mess?

What makes the drive for addictive forms of dopamine so powerful?

I would argue that it’s not anything we possess, but what we’re missing.

There’s an empty void at the centre of our lives that we’re desperately attempting to fill with the false happiness found through chemical release.

What we’re really looking for is a connection with the Self.

I’ve previously published an introductory essay on the Self. I’d recommend checking that out as it will provide you with an overview of the concept.

The Self is your higher nature, above and beyond the ego. Operating from the Self provides you with a sense of wholeness and connectedness. This reduces the need to gain anything in order to feel complete — because it’s apparent you already are.

Unfortunately, the modern world is very much disconnected from the Self. So much so that most of us don’t even know such a thing exists, let alone how to get in touch with it.

You experience this disconnection every day in various ways. Your inability to enjoy anything. You're grasping for the next distraction. The anxiety in the pit of your stomach.

You feel it, don’t you?

The walls are closing in. We have more options than ever, and yet life feels strangely restrictive. The natural tendencies of the human soul have been pressed, compacted, and given straight edges. We’ve been institutionalized by the denseness of our limited sense of self and the bizarre collective narratives that attempt to give our life meaning.

The lack of wholeness due to disconnection from the Self is the source of all our addictions. Almost everything we do is a desperate attempt to try and feel this wholeness again. We try to fill up the emptiness at the centre of our lives through the temporary solutions that are marketed to us, while the real solution is to disregard these false narratives and return to a natural life.

The Natural Life

The answer is simple. A commitment to begin constructing your life around the natural sources of happiness. While also cutting ties with the manipulations of the modern world. Providing yourself with the time, space and mental stillness to reconnect with the Self.

Here’s a vision for you.

You’re child-like once again. Exploring the world with fresh eyes, open to experience as it comes, rather than labelling everything based on pre-existing expectations.

Imagine a life that’s focused on the fundamentals of existence, ignoring the mental noise, allowing you to once again operate from the present moment and enjoy every moment for its own sake.

Picture living simply in nature. Waking up with the sun and watching it dip below the horizon every evening. Remaining disconnected from the mind-numbing beckoning of personal technology and the emotionally agitating whims of the mass media.

How would you feel if you could spend your time honouring your values? Spending time with family? Engaging in deep conversations? Learning about the world? Teaching others? Working on creative projects? Appreciating art? Playing? Dreaming? Visioning? Connecting with your spiritual essence?

This is the natural life.

Now you might be thinking:

Sounds great, but this isn’t the world we live in. This type of lifestyle isn’t possible for most people. It requires financial freedom and a certain flexibility.

That’s true. This lifestyle could be described as naively utopian. There’s validity to that. I would argue, however, that the individual is capable of moving towards the natural life as a long-term vision.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but baby steps can be taken to disengage from all the physical and mental addictions society has forced on you and replace them with healthier alternatives.

The Solution

Here are some steps you could take:

1. Acknowledge that what is being said here is important for your long-term happiness.

2. Set an intention to remove yourself from the clutches of media influence. This step alone will refresh your psyche and leave you with a surprising amount of free time, even if nothing else in your life changes.

3. Realise that your life doesn’t need to revolve around consumerism. It won’t make you happy. It’s a dopamine addiction. Buy less. Minimize. Simplify.

4. Hop off the cycle of having to always increase your cost of living as you make more money. There’s no end goal here. It’s pointless.

5. Instead, consider using your capital to break away from your reliance on the markets and any other unhealthy systems you’re engaged in. Buy your freedom. This isn’t a process to be taken lightly. It’s a fight for your life.

6. As your life is simplified and your reliance on the system becomes less rigid, you can begin to focus on your core values: family, health, spirituality, purpose, etc.

7. Spend more time in nature. Ideally, find a way to make a permanent move. Lose yourself in the wilderness and then find yourself in it again. The more remote you go, for longer periods, the more the harmful influence of culture will wane. Your mind will clear and your connection with the Self will grow. Ultimately, you’ll find yourself more authentically happy than you ever thought possible.

I’m convinced these are the building blocks for the good life. They’re what I’m aiming to build my life around in the long term.

Maybe you disagree, and that’s fair, do whatever you think will bring you the most happiness. Just don’t discount the possibility that you’ve been indoctrinated into a false vision of what happiness looks like. The natural life may provide you with more satisfaction than you realise.

Ben Worrall