This weekend I realized how important endorphins are to my daily happiness: I often explain that I like dodgeball because it relieves stress and allows aggression to get out; turns out it might just be the endorphins, those "feel-good" chemicals released both by the pituarity gland and the hypothalamus when we feel pain or exericese, and they literally mean "inside the body" and "morphine." The word kind proves the point in "Big Fat Greek Wedding 3," that almost all words in English can be traced back to the Greek language. Actually, a bunch of naturally occuring things in the body sound scary: more than just morphine is "opioid receptor," or the brain's reward centers. And the 4 "feel-good" hormones are dopamine (sounds like a narcotic), seratonin, endorphins, and oxytocin (literally an anagram of oxycotin, a main cause of America's opioid crisis)
I guess my natural highs all can be credited to these little guys (I'll call them "bobby-dorphins") , and why I can stay relatively happy most days with just an hour of running (in fact, I crave my runs outside to a level of addiction, likely because my body is just itching to let out a burst of endorphins to make me happy again after a long day of working) and why I feel SO good after playing dodgeball, I can't think of anything else: my brain is high on that feeling of natural high and needs to calm down from it, to the point I can't think about anything else.
I think also that I'm one of those people who gets an Bobbydorphin rush from talking to people: if I go a whole day without talking, I don't get the pleasure boost from communicating my thoughts or laughing or making a joke. So much of everything I do makes sense now! It's why I actively seek out conversation with other people, even though it probably won't be productive and won't amount to much, I still do it because it's fun, and my brain likes it like it likes candy. I took several Ubers this past weekend; I'm the passenger who would select the "likes chatting" option for Ubers, as opposed to "leave me alone" quiet mode. I'll give Uber drivers a chance to earn their tip upon entering the car: I'll initiate a topic, and if they give me a certain response to keep going, I'll strike up a conversation. I play it cool like I'd be OK either way, but secretly I'm definitely hoping for a talkative driver, because really that's the only time you'll ever see the driver ever again.
One final source of Bobbydorphin-boosting activity that's mostly unique to me: I like reffing. Referees have one of the worst reputations in the world, almost as bad as lawyers and insurance salesmen, or a more apt analogy, like cops, because they are the police of sports and games. If they're doing a good job, you don't notice them. If they do a bad job, everyone hates them, even the side they rule in favor of. It's a no-win situation, yet I'm drawn to it, like I'm trying to right the wrongs of society or prevent the cheaters of dodgeball to get away from it or something. I've done a lot of soul searching on this and haven't come up with a precise answer: part of it is definitely pride, thinking (maybe erroneously) that I'm good at reffing and can get more calls right than the average dodgeball referee (however many there are in the world) but also it's probably the rush of knowing I make a call that will likely impact this game, so I better get it right, similar to playing in a game and having a stake in what's happening in the game. The world is so messed up nowadays and the lines between what's right and wrong and what's fair or unjust are so blurry, it's kind of exciting to do an activity that has a right or wrong answer and try to solve the puzzle, get it right most of the time. I tend to get almost as big of a rush reffing it as playing it, as both have sort of a goal-accomplish hook to it that draws me and the Bobby-dorphins.
No comments:
Post a Comment