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Pleasure Is Not Happiness

In some religions, like Buddhism and many indigenous tribes, people didn't confuse happiness with pleasure. Researchers who explored the topic of happiness within the Tsimane people in Bolivian lowland Amazonia and other tribes across South America found that "moderate happiness" and contentment came from social relationships and good health, not from wealth or pleasure activities.

In neuropsychology and neuroscience, pleasure is known as an addictive feeling - a reward from the brain in the form of dopamine release. This feel-good substance needs constant reinforcement because it never comes with long-term satisfaction.

That's why it is the foundation of all addictions - drugs, sex, food - anything that can deliver the dopamine rush again and again. In western culture today, relationships and lifestyles are founded on pleasure-seeking - anticipating it - expecting it, and demanding it. The teacher has to amuse us to learn, in relationships people have to be walking circuses, keeping each other entertained at all times, because it isn't harmony, peace, understanding, and contentment people want, nor a deep natural connection - they want pleasure. And when the drug is over, and there's no more dopamine rush, the house of cards falls because pleasure is not happiness. It never was and never will be. That is a universal truth - knowledge shared from the indigenous tribes to the Taoists, Buddhists, and neuroscientists.


So finding happiness and peace from within, in a couple, or within a social group may feel like something otherworldly and confusing. However, it may be more rewarding and much more real than any consumption of mere pleasure.

"If you don't get what you want, you suffer. And even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer" - Dan Millman, Peaceful Warrior.