Dopamine Maxing

Dopamine Maxing and the Illusion of Language

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the idea of being mindful when the impulse arises to engage in a “dopamine-sucking” activity — the kind of thing that gives you a quick hit but leaves you emptier afterward. The real practice, I’ve realized, isn’t about what happens; it’s about how you respond. Sometimes your assumptions aren’t true, and that’s okay.

Today, while listening to The Ascent of Humanity, something stood out to me — a section about tools, specifically the tool of language. It explored how language functions similarly to numbers: both abstract reality. Both create separation.

The Abstraction of Language

Take the word green, for example. When I say “green,” I begin to mistake the word for the actual color — the living experience of green. We start to confuse our symbols with what they represent, mistaking the map for the territory.

The word green standardizes color. It lumps all the infinite variations and hues of green into one conceptual box. This compression of experience shrinks the richness of what we actually see. When we substitute the word green for the color itself, sameness replaces uniqueness. The sacredness of what is gets dulled.

This is why words can become a barrier — an insulation from reality. As the Tao Te Ching says, “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

When we listen without labeling and look without labeling, we open ourselves to a deeper immediacy. We experience what’s truly there — unfiltered, alive, vibrant. By dropping labels, we let in more of life’s colors and sounds. We become more sensitive, more connected.

Nouns and the Western Mind

The English language, interestingly, contains far more nouns than older or native languages. That difference reveals something profound: our language shapes how we perceive reality.

The Western mind tends to see the world as a collection of objects — discrete, independent things “out there.” But older, more primal languages describe the world in terms of processes. They use more verbs than nouns.

To perceive the world as processes rather than things changes everything. Solidness begins to dissolve. Boundaries blur. Life reveals itself as flowing, interwoven, dynamic.

Objects separate us. Processes connect us. The independence we think we see in “things” is an illusion — just like separateness and solidity are illusions.

How does it feel to perceive processes instead of things? How does that shift register in the body?

The Illusion of Objective Meaning

The invention of the dictionary marked another turning point. It created the idea that words have objective meanings, independent of speaker and listener. But in truth, words aren’t really there. They’re perceptions — ever-shifting, contextual, alive.

Every person’s experience of a word is unique. The illusion of fixed definitions only reinforces the worldview of objectivity and separation.

In contrast, in the more process-oriented, interbeing languages, there’s an understanding that meaning arises betweenpeople — not within static words.

When we stop clinging to words, labels, and definitions, we rediscover the vibrance that’s always here. We see life not as a set of nouns, but as a flowing dance of verbs — a living process unfolding in real time.

#essay
#posted
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https://gyol.substack.com/p/movement-mindfulness-and-language