Walking the Hedonic Treadmill
6 minute read
I love a good comfort shop. The buzz of it, the visceral thrill. Truth be told I’ve always been a spender rather than a saver and I’ve always loved buying clothes and makeup. Girly cliché? Oh well, there’s worse things.
But during the pandemic things got a little, shall we say, more amplified. Being confined to home with lots of time for online escapades, I dove a little deeper into comfort shopping than was perhaps prudent. Which is to say I bought lots of stuff, some of which I needed, some of which was simply extra. I jacked my Visa way the hell up. And the thrill of spending wasn’t really enough to offset the downside of a significant credit card balance.
I know I’m in good company here and that worldwide online shopping went through the roof during the pandemic. But even at the time I had a niggly feeling that I was buying things not because I needed them, but to get a rush. That I was savouring the dopamine hit that comes from anticipating a package arriving with goodies to brighten things up and break the monotony of the shutdown.
Quick neuroscience tutorial: dopamine is a chemical released by the brain when we anticipate getting something we want. When the brain releases dopamine we feel excited, even a little jittery. The sensation of having butterflies in your tummy is an effect of dopamine, as is the anticipation and tense excitement of foreplay. It’s not too big a stretch to understand how the thoughts of a beautifully wrapped piece of clothing or a skincare product could produce the same effect. A welcome reprieve from lockdown-induced boredom.
Gambling is addictive because it activates the dopamine reward system, giving the gambler jolts of a drug made in their own body. Dopamine, is what’s called an ‘endogenous’ drug, one made by the human brain, as opposed to ‘exogenous’ drugs like cocaine which mimic the effects of dopamine but are made synthetically outside the human body. Some theories say that gamblers are addicted to risk, to the thrill of anticipation. Maybe they are also physically addicted to dopamine, just like people become addicted to tobacco and other drugs.
I’ve never actually had a full blown shopping addiction but I’ve definitely used it to numb out. A panacea of sorts. And though I’m smart enough to know the difference, on some level I was exchanging consumption for meaning, prioritising a dopamine hit over the anxiety-inducing reality of a credit card statement.
Seeking purpose in a cardboard box whose contents were welcome but didn’t really give me the deep satisfaction I was seeking. The truth is I was missing connection. Connection with friends and acquaintances, with yoga students, with pretty much everyone except my husband and our small pod.
But sometimes also connection with my husband. Over the years when things between us have taken a dive, I’ve self-medicated with retail therapy. No harm in a treat to bridge the gap while navigating a rough spot every now and then. But mistaking consumption for connection and intimacy is as off track as looking for meaning and purpose in yet another top that I’ll hardly wear, not to mention another serum to make my skin look like I’m not six months out from the big five oh.
I’ve also used online shopping, or website perusal, as a way to defer doing what I know needs to be done for me to thrive, namely writing, wrestling with the creative impulse throbbing away in the background like a second pulse. Writing for me is also connection, connecting parts of myself, connecting ideas, making sense of what goes in my head and how it relates to the world around me.
I’m not saying that the odd splurge is wrong, or that a new dress can’t perk you up on a rainy day. I’m talking about avoidance, using shopping as a distraction, a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings and the excruciating process of writing, of mining the depths to find meaning. Or sometimes just having the discipline to sit there and get it done. Writing is hard; most worthwhile things are hard. If they were easy, we might not value them quite so much.
Reading the New York Times on one of the many Sundays that blurred into each other during the Covid quarantine, I came across an article about Philip Brickman, the social scientist who coined the term ‘hedonic treadmill’ in 1971. The phrase refers to our tendency to want more and more, to keep consuming in an effort to stave off the shadows. If I keep consuming, going after pleasure and short term happiness, I can avoid the depths and bypass life’s travails.
Hedonism’s first principle is pleasure, it makes desire satisfaction the most important part of life. I don’t consider myself a hedonist, though who doesn’t prefer pleasure over pain? But this hit hard. Deep down I knew that I used buying things as a way to numb out feelings of missing connection, emptiness even, and also to avoid doing the hard work of writing. I’m talking about self-discipline but also about traversing some inner shadowy places and my fears about whether anyone actually wants to read what I write.
Ugh. Existentialism overload. Brickman proposed that our commitments are the antidote to the meaningless of hedonism. The way to get off the treadmill is to find something that’s worth getting off for, to get invested in something more interesting.
Hedonism’s fatal flaw is putting pleasure over purpose. At some point, even pleasure can get old.
Brickman said that our commitments might actually “oppose and conflict with freedom and happiness” but “this is exactly why they matter - the more we sacrifice for something, the more value we assign to it.”
This made so much sense and expressed something about yoga practice that I’ve thought but not quite been able to articulate for years. Maintaining a regular and consistent yoga practice will make your life better, but definitely not easier. Sometimes it’s hard to get up and do the practice, to make sacrifices elsewhere in your life so that you can. But it’s so worth it. The rewards are deep and wide and the meaning my practice brings to my life is incalculable.
It's the same with marriage. “Oppose and conflict with freedom and happiness”? Definitely. But provide meaning and purpose? Beyond measure. Although I never became a parent, I know that having children is a surefire way to replace being carefree with having responsibilities, but from all I’ve heard, the tradeoff is more than worth it.
So what’s the takeaway? My almost 50 year old self has come to a place where I can tell the difference between buying myself a treat as a pick-me-up and consuming to numb out. I’ve certainly done a lot of both but I’m finally at a point in my life where I just don’t want to keep running. Running from uncomfortable feelings, from the need for connection, and also running from inhabiting my creativity, from stepping out from the shadows and allowing myself to be seen.
I can’t keep hiding, using the short-lived thrill of the purchase to stave off the long term project of finding fulfillment and self-actualization. I’m sure I’ll fall off the wagon every now and then but somehow getting back on the hedonic treadmill just isn’t that appealing. The view from meaning and purpose land is so much better.
Dearbhla Kelly, September 2022
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