Addiction

37. 중독

37. Addiction

To the north, the lights were a sight to see, stretched out in a row along the ridge that night. They recalled the lamps that dangle from squid-catching boats. They marked the Military Demarcation Line, where soldiers march in their gear along the road below the mountain.

The young army private walked with a spring in his step as he’d just read a letter he had received before departing. Two weeks to arrive, another two weeks to send something back—waiting for military mail truly made the heart ache.

After I left behind all of those long, poignant waits between letters and returned to my studies, I found an online environment that was vastly different from the dreary message boards that existed before I enlisted.

The same travelers who used to talk about simply going wherever their feet led them now hesitated to set off without GPS devices; it had become impossible to talk about urban life without mentioning the Internet.

My boyhood days when I used to flip through the mail looking for a reply from someone I was missing, the times when we would all sit down in front of the TV together to watch a favorite series, the experience of putting on headphones to hear a radio broadcast—all of these were distant memories now.

From time to time throughout the day, I check my blog and social media accounts to see how many clicks I have gotten and what kinds of replies my posts have drawn. On days when I get more visitors than usual, I feel somewhat giddy, but I’ve also had trouble fighting off my fury when people leave malicious messages.

The Internet’s arrival in the palm of our hand—thanks to the iPhone—only adds to my anxiety, and these days I cannot rest easy unless I get immediate replies to the messages I send.

New York and Seoul are no different in terms of being filled with people slouching over their smartphones to experience all the fascinating sights and sounds that duly come up as they tap on their tiny screens.

Reflection and insight still take a long time to achieve, and people who are accustomed to enjoying instant gratification often seek something more stimulating. Some of them still type using a keyboard or click a mouse, but these days a simple tap of the finger is enough. If anything, we’ve grown unaccustomed to waiting.

Our fingers on a screen follow our minds to the places to which they are drawn. The electrons traveling on the LCD screen respond to the static electricity coming from our bodies; sensors read the information and offer us the sights and sounds we are looking for.

The information that enters our eyes and ears travels straight through our neurons to the brain, where the neurotransmitter dopamine is instantly released to our gratified central nervous system, prolonging the pleasure.

The problem comes when we’re separated from this flood of dopamine when we step away from our favorite mobile games and online habits. This triggers feelings of anxiety and fear. With our minds weakened, our bodies are driven by the desire to regain that lost happiness, and we end up succumbing once again to the lure of games or pornography, constantly seeking that powerful stimulation.

This sort of pleasure without the element of waiting is the gateway to addiction. The reason people fall prey to the temptation to drink or use drugs is the same: the experience of fast and simple pleasure.

The Buddha implores us to cultivate ourselves so that the mind remains untainted—separate from the colors, sounds, smells, and tastes it experiences through the sensory organs of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Yet many of us have begun to struggle severely with dopamine addiction.

When I arrived in Seoul, my mother told me she had disconnected the Internet service in order to save the eight dollars a month. It was like finding myself on a deserted mountain, unable to do anything I wanted: no ticket reservations, no navigating, no online shopping, no email or social media.

All the convenience I had unthinkingly enjoyed had been taken from me without warning, and the feelings of peevishness and discomfort grated on me like the whining of a weaning baby. Grumbling, I went off to the coffee shop beneath the church across the street behind our house.

When I connected to the WiFi, I breathed a sigh of relief. It is both comical and embarrassing to think that my peace of mind somehow became dependent on whether I had access to a computer and a network.

If being offline leaves you exhausted, this should be cause enough for reflection. Ask yourself the question: Am I a dopamine addict? If your anxiety stems from an unbearable loneliness that descends when you are not connected to something, peel your eyes away from the monitor and look around—look at the flowers, the water, the wind, the sunshine, and your neighbors.

The Buddha tells us that we already exist within Indra’s net as a single body and single life, entangled in a relationship of grace and unable to survive without each other.

Once we open the eyes of our mind and understand that all things originally exist within a single boundary through a single principle, the foolish loneliness of one who spends three years searching for the child perched on their back will dissolve into a smile.

That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?

—Ecclesiastes 7:24