Study: Phenomenology of Neurotransmitter Dynamics

First post for 2020!

I've been working on the one business for the past four to five years - and it has been quite intense. Many of its projects have involved pioneering work for the organisation, while juggling operational responsibilities. Sometimes the stress is quite high: under great-ish pressure to deliver results on limited resources, in a solo sub-role within the organisation, I can fuck-up several times in a few months, crash, and then I have to try and repair myself, using only myself, while still running the business in general. This happened in small instances over the arc from 2015 to 2019, but 2019 involved a few compound setbacks during a period of my own ill health, and that was a major downer.

I spent a good part of 2019 fixing myself up, and here's some significant progress in my personal resource management. In earlier years, I'd pretty much got a good grasp of how to work tactically on second-to-minute time frames, and also on month-to-year time frames. But my weakness, as it turns out, has been working on the hourly-to-daily cadences - generally I'd been running those by intuition, but under catastrophic failure conditions, intuition doesn't work very well. So as usual, I've been looking for the relevant first-principles to address. Here's what I've found.

The science behind how neurotransmitters affect our instincts is, at this point in time, somewhat modelled. We don't know exactly how things work, but we have a rough idea. Two or three classes of molecules make up the majority of our motivations under the hood. Whether you believe that your actions are determined more by society or by yourself, the definition of 'what you want' literally boils down to 'what you want to do, now' at any point in time. So I've drafted a small set of reminders for myself, that a bot will read to me on an hourly basis, which means I should actually hear this at least a handful of time a day - hopefully enough to make it useful.

Here's an early draft:

• serotonin check
• deficiency indicated by stress
• to top-up
• fill the gut with fibre, and attempt aerobic exercise
• excess indicated by nausea, reduced libido, confusion
• to cut
• reduce all afferent stimuli, including food
• dopamine check
• deficiency indicated by boredom
• to top-up
• ingest protein, attempt anaerobic exercise, and sensory meridian response
• excess indicated by mania
• to cut
• take a break; zero all sensory imaginations
• norepinephrine check: monitor by proxy, via caffeine intake and effects
• supplement check
• b12 may increase neurotransmitter synthesis
• fish oil may increase neurotransmitter synthesis
• creatine may reduce or inhibit neurotransmitter synthesis or activity

And a coded version:

#!/bin/bash
echo "/home/jerng/physical.sh"

espeak "serotonin check" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "deficiency indicated by stress" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300
espeak "to top-up" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s400
espeak "fill the gut with fibre, and attempt aerobic exercise" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "excess indicated by nausea, reduced libido, confusion" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "to cut" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "reduce all afferent stimuli, including food" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250

espeak "dopamine check" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "deficiency indicated by boredom" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300
espeak "to top-up" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s400
espeak "ingest protein, attempt anaerobic exercise, and sensory meridian response" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300
espeak "excess indicated by mania" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s200
espeak "to cut" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "take a break; zero all sensory imaginations" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250

espeak "nor-epinephrine check: monitor by proxy, via caffeine intake and effects" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s200

espeak "supplement check" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s250
espeak "b12 may increase neurotransmitter synthesis" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300
espeak "fish oil may increase neurotransmitter synthesis" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300
espeak "creatine may reduce or inhibit neurotransmitter synthesis or activity" -g10 -k20 -p80 -s300

sleep 3600
./physical.sh


Footnote 1. I still believe in the program of making work my top priority, and to fit all other items in life in subservience to it. A week has 168 hours. I allocate about 70 hours on average for sleep, leaving 98 hours for business, life support, and any projects which enable me to do better work for my business, including various recreational and personal development activities. I come from a culture where people work fast, burn out, and die young. Competition is stiff, and any edge that can be acquired should be fully exercised. (Some might say, FWIW, I live and breathe capitalism.)

Footnote 2. A brief throwback. I've been running my career autonomously for the past 19 years. The first two to three years were spent partly studying human consciousness resulting in a model that allows for the practical destructuring of experience. Then I spent a two to three more years initiating myself in commerce, and after that spent a decade or so on a very broad program in pursuit of multiple targets. For the second-to-minute periods, I've now got almost two decades of practice in analytical phenomenology. For the month-to-year periods, I've executed a few multi-year arcs between 2001 and 2019, and I'm still working on one now.

Footnote 3. I really hate doing human life support. I find eating and sleeping incredibly tedious, and I generally wish I didn't have to. But that's the nature of meat, and so this is supposed to help me manage that better.