The greatest delusion ever sold to us by modern advertising is not that we need to buy water in bottles or that rocks make good pets. It’s the delusion that we should expect to be happy all the time.
This idea certainly would have been news to our ancient ancestors. Over millions of years, they became the dominant hominid on the planet because their brains evolved to be survival machines, not happiness generators. The first peals of laughter around those early campfires were not because everyone was having a good time; laughter evolved as a social bonding signal to communicate to the rest of the tribe: ‘Phew, we’re safe now. Looks like we’ve seen off that saber-toothed tiger.’
The feel-good chemical dopamine that coursed through their brains was not there to make them enjoy their lives, as many of us believe it is today. Dopamine was released as the get-up-and-go chemical to drive them to seek out more nutritious foods.
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