how are we humans programmable?

In our earlier issue we went over how we unintentionally seem to fall below an acceptable level of outcomes no matter how well people may perceive our life situation.

Let’s explore this from the perspective how it unfolds, interacts and eventually impacts us in a big way.

Environment- No matter how much we are familiar with the meaning, our environment goes quite deep in defining and predicting human experiences.

our environment is a complex mixture of elements, place, time, and people/organisms- not the one location we think of it to be. in fact anything and everything that can be perceived through our senses (touch, smell, taste, sight, sound) is part of this complex structure we put into one single word This Environment.

Environment is rarely new, to some extent it is familiar. We have a lineage of human conditions that we have in our genes and also as we have spent time growing up as a child, we have been conditioned by being brought into certain environments- how we react, or rather expected to react by society, how people react in a certain way or perform being part of a group when put into those environments. Once we have associated ourselves in a certain way with environments, experienced certain outcomes, we associate that feeling/experience with that environment. more this process is repeated, deeper it gets embedded.

Environments gives rise to cues. What is a cue? its just a signal that a certain outcome can be expected or done.

We humans when put into familiar environments, are expected to act in a certain way. Why? because the constituents within this environment act as cues, and we know outright, what to expect.

Also it’s not just about cues. Attention is a big part of this process. Why attention? Unless we attend to those familiar cues, the puzzle just doesn’t fit in right? But of course we have all experienced, we hardly are careful in this part. We can define attention in this context as the knowing, present in the gap between cue and action. What is even more important- can we add more intention into our attention, or just keep attending to stuff for the sake of it. Intentional attention or a few people might call it presence, can not only increase this gap we spoke about but deepen our analysis of the environment as well.

Now the elephant in the room, Dopamine!

Why do we act or react in a certain way? because we anticipate the outcome or experience beforehand- whether it be fear or pleasure. this anticipation of cue and reward ,or, cue and pleasure triggers this neurotransmitter in our brains. It makes acting or reacting in a certain way irresistible.

Finally the act itself. Once we act in a certain way, out of anticipation that’s grandeur than the real experience or indulgence, we are struck asking ourselves did anticipation make us really want it intentionally?, or is it actually getting done under the influence of a complex set of factors at play. If the act is additive in nature to an ideal identity that we want to live, then this progress leaves us with lasting happiness; and if it turns out to be otherwise, then remorse it is.

Observe carefully and you’ll notice the gap between environment, cue, act is immensely reduced under the influence of dopamine and lack of intentional attention. The only control we can expect to exert to some extent is, on how present we can be in the now! with all our attention, and observe carefully all the factors at play- bring the act under the lens of our ideal identity, assess if its actually something we would want to live with, or continue doing, then give in or flee accordingly.

Few of you might relate this too- this cycle repeated often, and a set of acts associate themselves as habits and cling onto our familiar environments.

Alright, and here we come to an end today. Hope you could relate your personal experiences and observations while reading this piece.

What’s the take away here?

1. Understand the influence of environments, cue and dopamine
2. Not all acts are backed by deeper purpose- but rather are so instant that we fail to observe
3. Embrace the importance of attention- synthetically it seems to slow down our pace, but what it does is deepens observation in this present moment
4. Log the cycle of environment > cue > attention > dopamine > action , as rows of notes. There you’ll have your evidence
5. Over time the logged evidence helps in identifying what really goes unidentified under the hood of our fractured attention.

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