11

PASSION—A USER’S MANUAL

OUR PASSIONS HAVE a bigger impact on our lives than all our thoughts. While we can consciously change what we think, our passions are built solidly into us, and we have to take them as they are. They are the driving force behind our happiness, but they can also plunge us into deep sadness. This is why the art of living consists in knowing our passions, living with them and enjoying them.

It isn’t surprising that people have been thinking about passion since time immemorial. But when we look for advice, we find instead confusion. Nearly everything that can be said about how to live well and cope with our feelings has already been said by some wise person. And then there’s always someone else who claims the exact opposite. After two thousand years of philosophy, more than a century of psychology, and a deluge of how-to books, talk shows, and women’s magazines, we know just about as much about how to live as we did before. What should we be looking for in love? Adventure? Or does the intimacy of having one partner for life bring us more lasting happiness? Do we have to work to be happy? Or is it leisure that makes life worth living?

In the meantime, the spiral of scientific discovery continues to turn. For the first time, neurobiology makes it possible not only to describe feelings, but, in reproducible experiments, to understand how feelings come into being and what purpose they serve. This opens a new gate to understanding our humanity—and with very practical implications, for in the long run we will be more productive and happier if we live in ways that correspond to human nature rather than frustrating our most basic drives.

Research can serve as a filter for truisms, separating good advice from bad. In this chapter I’ll examine a checklist of a few proverbs, sayings, and aphorisms that have entered our shared thinking, to see whether they’re consistent with the discoveries of neuroscience. In part, I’ll be reaching back to some of the discoveries discussed in earlier chapters.

There are three insights at the heart of our inquiry that stand on solid ground and turn up again and again in different contexts.

First, positive feelings can drive out negative ones.

Second, although no happiness lasts forever, we can see to it that we experience more moments of happiness than before, and that the pleasure they give us lasts longer.

Third, less important than what we experience is how we experience it. This may seem no more than simple common sense, or even trivial, but there is a surprising amount of age-old “wisdom” that has crept into our collective thinking claiming the exact opposite.

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.

—THE ROLLING STONES

Indolence makes us sad.

—THOMAS AQUINAS

Surprising as it might be to find Mick Jagger and Thomas Aquinas concurring, they both came to the right conclusion: we are not made for living on Easy Street. This is why nature rewards us for activity, while too much comfort takes a toll on our well-being. Like the singer in the Rolling Stones’ song, we might sometimes want to sit back and passively take whatever television and radio sends our way, but in the long run it won’t give us satisfaction—something evolution was able to prevent.

It would have made no sense for people to succumb to their indolence over long stretches of time, since the only advantage Homo sapiens had over other species was our intelligence and skill. It was important to keep these advantages, and our brain still spurs us on to remain active—not just to observe the world, but to test ourselves in it. Dopamine plays a key role here.

This is the reason rich people who have no need whatsoever for more money continue to be professionally active instead of sunning themselves in Bermuda, why a Bill Gates can’t keep from having yet another bright idea for running his latest rival out of town.

We work for more than food and rent. The philosophers and millionaires of antiquity who valued leisure knew very well that a life without goals and activity quickly leads to depression. And they were constantly busy—writing, discussing, and organizing political campaigns, sumptuous feasts, and celebrations.

Today, too, people feel better when they’re busy in their free time—except in (rare) cases of total exhaustion. But depending on their temperament, many people find it difficult to get off their backsides and do something that doesn’t absolutely have to get done. People like to pretend that lazing about is just what the doctor ordered. It’s a fateful mistake: doing nothing hardly ever makes people happy—something that scientists have even been able to measure.1

For this reason it’s a good idea to turn the clock of civilization back a bit now and then. A pizza from the freezer might taste good, of course, but the pleasure it gives hardly lasts longer than the time it takes to shove it into the oven and scarf it down. Baking the pizza yourself gives greater satisfaction. Just leafing through the cookbook gets the expectation system going. It’s no tragedy if the recipe contains ingredients that aren’t so easy to find: dopamine is released to guide you toward your goal. Opioids allow us to anticipate the taste of pleasures to come and to appreciate the added effort required in their preparation.

Activity, then, intensifies both the anticipation and the enjoyment itself. Because the expectation system isn’t directed toward a particular goal, it doesn’t really matter very much just what you do. Renovate the apartment, learn to ride a snowboard, dedicate yourself to a social project—they all work. Albert Einstein enjoyed chopping wood, the Roman emperor Diocletian grew vegetables. Even sweeping out a patio can be satisfying. “People are busy looking for happiness,” wrote the French philosopher Alain, “but they are happiest being busy.”

No sports, Just whisky and cigars.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

This is how the English Prime Minister described his elixir of life. For this motto, fondly quoted by couch potatoes, he paid dearly. Churchill was plagued by deep depression. He sarcastically called his suffering the “black dog” that never left his side. The pathological forms of melancholy, as Churchill had to endure them, probably have their root causes in our genes. Nevertheless, even in a deep depression physical movement lifts spirits, as extensive studies from the last two decades have shown. Similarly, some studies have concluded that for people afflicted with relatively minor forms of depression, a run in the park can be just as effective as psychotherapy.2

The positive effect of physical exertion on healthy people is even stronger. Scientists in Europe and America carried out more than eighty large surveys, and almost all came to the same conclusion: people who engage regularly in sports feel better and have more self-confidence; they are less fearful and less often depressed.3 We are made for movement.

Surprisingly, sports seem to help women especially. In several studies, up to 20 percent more women than men said they felt better after physical activity, though we don’t yet know why this so.4

Running, swimming, dancing—all kinds of sports are effective, because the specific kind of movement is immaterial. Still less important are particular scores or other marks of success—on the contrary, there are indications that ambition is more harmful than useful. Goals that are set too high often can’t be reached, lead to frustration and then to the failure of the best intentions. Half an hour of physical activity every day is sufficient, for having a washboard stomach isn’t the point. As Rousseau wrote, “For the mind’s sake, it’s necessary to exercise the body.”5

Exercise improves our mood in many ways. Moving muscles stimulates the production of hormones like serotonin and presumably also endorphins that can trigger feelings of slight euphoria. It’s our body’s sensory apparatus that is mainly responsible for the emotional lift we get from physical activity. There are sensors throughout the body that serve the nervous system as they watch over the organism. Thanks to these so-called visceral receptors we can track the condition of our heart, stomach, lungs, and intestines, as well as the tension of all large muscles. At every moment, the brain receives a whole concert of messages from the body, and we can learn to be alert to them and enjoy the body’s smooth functioning.

Even when we’re not conscious of these signals, the brain interprets them as emotions. Muscle tension and cold hands are taken as signs of fear: we feel slightly unwell and probably don’t even know why.

But as the body begins to exert itself, the limbs warm up, the muscles relax, and the pulse increases a bit—and it is precisely these responses that reflect the body’s sense of well-being. By moving, we can gently manipulate the neurons in our brain, coaxing the organism into the condition that it otherwise experiences in moments of happiness—and from the appropriate physiological signals, the brain, in turn, automatically generates positive feelings.

I want to have it all, and now, I must/
Before my last dreams turn to dust.

—GITTE HAENNING

Do we really want everything? I’m afraid so. That, at least, is how we’re programmed. It’s almost like a reflex: we try to get whatever we can, and then it’s not enough. What we get only makes us hungry for more.

That’s simply how the circuits in our brains work. In this way we’re basically like Schultz’s monkeys. Once they got used to the apples, the neurons that previously interpreted the reward as a very special treat were silent. They wanted raisins. As soon as something is within reach, the bar gets raised. Humans, too, are never satisfied.

The singer Gitte Haenning expressed her greed aggressively—and overlooked how boring wishes can become when they become reality. It’s not easy to be satisfied, especially in a world of superfluity, where everything seems within reach. An evening in front of the television can make our lives appear boring beyond belief. Who among us gets to swing at sophisticated parties, wield power and influence at the office, and raise children who are always skipping about on a sunny lawn—and all this at the same time? Measured against such standards, we can only feel like failures. Advertisements seem to promise a way out, but the attractions of a new cell phone or a bargain plane fare fade as quickly as the sense of being full after a meal at a fast-food restaurant.

None of us is completely at the mercy of our greed, but a somewhat more critical understanding of the expectation system is required than Gitte Haenning suggests. Unlike monkeys, we’ve got minds capable of thought at this level. It’s often useful to realize that desire does not always end in pleasure and to imagine what our lives would be like a few months after the object of our longing had been met. Wanting and liking are two different things.

No one should have to forgo his pleasure in shopping or his need to assert himself. In any case, the urge for more is anchored so deep within us that it’s hard to get away from it. But a bit of ironic distance can help us cope with desire and not take it too seriously. The opera singer Maria Callas accomplished this in a most original way. At the height of her success, she was the best-paid musician of her time, earning more than she could possibly spend. So for each successive engagement she increased her fee by exactly one dollar.

Variatio delectat—Change gives pleasure.

—ROMAN PROVERB

It’s true. By varying our pleasures we can escape the dulling of our senses. Someone who has just eaten chicken will find a banana more appealing than another chicken. After a banana, on the other hand, nothing tastes better than fish, as was determined by the scientists Edmund Rolls and John O’Doherty. In their experiments, they came across the area of the prefrontal cortex which, at least for taste and smell, is responsible for the loss of interest that accompanies familiarity. But the Oxford University scientists also made another discovery—after eating a banana, people found that the fish tasted even better than usual.6

Contrast is a source of happiness. That’s good news, because it means that we have an alternative to the urge for more, for the expectation system quickly gets used to anything that gives pleasure. What had been an enjoyable surprise is now accepted as a matter of course and requires stronger stimulation—which doesn’t often happen. “Nothing is more difficult to endure than a series of good days,” wrote Goethe. But when we are open to different pleasures instead of stronger ones, the sense of delight is restored, and when the contrast is well chosen, our enjoyment is even more intense than before.

When you’ve just spent a fun evening at home with friends, it’s usually not a good idea to invite the same group over again right away: they will feel that the bar has been set too high. Instead, do something different with a different group of people. Go to the movie, or make it just the two of you. After a while, the first pleasure can be repeated, because the memory of the expectation system doesn’t last that long. The trick is to experience pleasure by rotation.

For the same reason, it’s worth learning to appreciate the unexpected. We have an ambivalent relationship with all things new: “There’s no place like home.” But although something unfamiliar is perceived as stressful, a pleasant surprise is one of the strongest feelings of pleasure that we can experience. Humans are programmed to seek new experiences.

We struggle with our ambivalence, but our reluctance to try something new wins out more often than it should, for like all creatures, we react more strongly to the danger of something unpleasant than to the attractiveness of a promising experience. If hope has to stand up against fear, it’s fear that usually wins. This is an evolutionary inheritance.

It’s been a very long time since life-threatening dangers lurked behind every bush, but the old mental programs keep running. All too often our caution keeps us from pleasurable experiences. We’ll order sushi for the hundredth time, even though we’ve long intended to try something else. And yet, thanks to our inborn passion for learning, we’re in a very good position to enjoy the unexpected.

Everyday experiences give us a chance to make this attitude our own. Take the weather, for example. How often do we curse unpredictable, changeable weather, even though the constant change can bring excitement, varies the very light around us, and last but not least provides grist for the conversational mill.

Whoever has consciously experienced the appeal of the unpredictable will find it everywhere. It’s stimulating to meet new people, because we aren’t able to plan for their reactions. A thriller can be riveting because the plot takes unexpected turns. And isn’t it one of the great everyday experiences of parenthood to watch our children develop their growing individuality?

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

—GREEK PROVERB

Tourism is one of the fastest-growing global industries. Journeys provide a change of scenery, and people enjoy exploring unknown terrain. But after a week or two, even the most exotic locale begins to become familiar. So we pull up stakes and move on to new, still more exciting destinations. The other, often better path is to open our eyes wider. For usually we’re aware of only a tiny slice of our environment. To the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, this was a cause of surprise and wonder:

Through many years,

At great expense,

Journeying through many countries,

I went to see high mountains,

I went to see oceans.

Only I had not seen

At my very doorstep,

The dew drop glistening

On the ear of the corn. 7

And so it is: we’re able to see, hear, smell, and taste everything that surrounds us with much greater intensity than we normally do. And the attentive observer will find unsuspected charms in even the most mundane aspects of everyday life.

Experiencing novelty in something familiar requires some practice. Most of us are in the habit of taking in as little as possible, which is how the brain protects us from stimuli that don’t play a major role in our survival. Circuits under the influence of dopamine play a part here. They guide our perceptions and provide an enjoyable experience only when the new stimulus seems to be advantageous to the organism. But this limitation can be overcome. We may not have an inborn desire to get on a bike, but we can learn to ride it nonetheless.

One way of training our senses is to guide our attention consciously, by focusing, for example, only on our sensory perceptions and on nothing else, forgetting about meaning and purpose. Suddenly we no longer see falling leaves as a nuisance that has to be raked off the lawn. Instead we hear the strangely quiet sound of a leaf as it sails to the ground. For once, instead of checking off unfamiliar faces as “nice” or “not nice,” we allow ourselves to see the pattern of lines and wrinkles that have been etched over the course of a lifetime.

Positive feelings then come of themselves, for the better we get to know the world, the more we learn to value it. This is explained by one of psychology’s most astonishing effects: the more often and intensely we perceive a stimulus, the more positively we react to it. In one experiment, the California scientist Robert Zajonc presented his American students with Chinese ideograms, to them meaningless. But simply by seeing them again and again, they developed a preference for them. And what’s more, the more often they saw a particular character, the more it lifted their spirits.

This applies to everything that we can perceive. Portraits of unknown people make them seem more pleasant; over time, Western ears find Asian folk music attractive; foods taste better, when we’ve eaten them frequently.8 It is probably because of this preference for what is familiar that radio stations play the same hits again and again and why fashion brings back familiar styles at regular intervals.

Our natural tendency to be bored kicks in only when we neglect to rotate our pleasures. With even a minor change in our routine, we can avoid monotony, as fashion designers well know. Or we can become ever more familiar with what we already know, so that it is always showing new sides. There is no contradiction, then, in saying that we derive pleasure from both novelty and familiarity.

For most people, a fly is just a bother, but for an amateur entomologist it can contain an entire cosmos. She will tell us with enthusiasm that it isn’t just an ordinary housefly, but the rare hippobosca equina, or horse louse fly, that its eye consists of more than seven hundred facets and can see ultraviolet light, and that its wings are a miracle of fine engineering. Recounting this, she will experience something like the joy of discovery.

Once again, the object of our enthusiasm is not what matters. Whether theater, football, or the inner workings of motorcycles—any focused interest can enhance our lives. In contrast to the fun of shopping, which inevitably concludes with dissatisfaction, this kind of happiness never has to end, for every experience, every new knowledge opens doors to new experiences. We embark on a journey that can last a lifetime and where each pleasure leads us to the next.

The strongest person is most powerful when alone.

—FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

We mustn’t allow ourselves to be intimidated by the cult of the lone wolf. The books, films, and drama of Western culture are filled with men who are willing to take on the whole world single-handed, one against all. The hero in westerns fights alone against dark forces and overcomes them. Admired by one and all and with the most beautiful woman west of the Mississippi at his side, he can now live in the frontier town that he saved. But that’s not for him. And as the movie ends, we see John Wayne riding into the sunset—but for his horse, utterly alone.

German culture, especially, has been fatally imbued with the idea that solitude is a particularly desirable and noble condition. Caspar David Friedrich’s lonely monk by the sea, Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Thomas Mann’s tragic artists: they all would have us believe that solitude brings people closer to their innermost selves.

The exact opposite is true, as both clinical and neurobiological experiments show: it’s loneliness, more than any other factor, that causes stress. It’s a burden on both mind and body. It results in restlessness, confusion in thought and feeling (caused by stress hormones), and a weakening of the immune system. In isolation, people become sad and sick.

People in other cultures usually see loneliness for what it is: a condition that is often painful and unnatural. Indians, for example, are endlessly surprised to find tourists traveling alone. The Indian Nobel Prize–winning writer V. S. Naipaul describes people in Bombay who became wealthy but then abandoned their luxury apartments for the closeness of the run-down, densely populated barracks in which they’d grown up. Women, especially, couldn’t bear the empty silence and suffered from depression.9

This is the opposite of the sometimes equally extreme individualism of the West, which the psychologist Martin Seligman holds at least partly responsible for the prevalence of depression. Though a Westerner is not likely to share the need for physical contact that is the norm in Asia, studies of the devastating effects of loneliness suggest that we sometimes look for greater distance from others than is good for us.

It’s better to be alone than in bad company.

—GEORGE WASHINGTON

Even if this motto seems to contradict what you’ve just read, it’s true. Precisely because human closeness is so important for our well-being, the wrong company can cause more stress than solitude. Quite apart from the fact that constant conflict diminishes mental well-being, the body, too, pays a price. Several experiments conducted by the American psychiatrist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser with her husband, the immunologist Robert Glaser, show that a destructive relationship has a direct effect on the immune system. In one experiment, they provoked a quarrel between a husband and wife. A few hours later the quantity of killer cells and antibodies in the blood that attack viruses had diminished dramatically, as had their effectiveness—the worse the fight, the less effective they became. If such quarrels occur only occasionally, no harm is done. But couples who basically don’t get along will pay for it with their health.10

In another study, scientists showed that the less students in a dormitory liked their roommates, the more often they got colds and went to the doctor. It’s been known for a long time that stress can reduce resistance to the flu and minor infections.11 There is also solid evidence that an unhappy relationship subtly causes the entire organism to suffer. When the warmth is irretrievably gone, it may be better to end the relationship.

How can people avoid the loneliness that might result? On the basis of his own experience, the French philosopher Montaigne offers unusual advice: to educate and refine our taste in the pleasures of the body. “With tooth and claw, we must cling to the enjoyment of life’s pleasures that are left to us.”12 Does this mean that we should treat ourselves to hot baths, massages, scents, music, and good food to fight off the pain of loneliness? Yes! One of the greatest dangers of being alone is the loss of self-esteem, and by indulging in gratifications of this kind, we give ourselves a lift. The French nobleman’s suggestion is also well worth thinking about from a neurobiological point of view: pleasure leads to the release of opioids that diminish tension and abate the melancholy of those hours during which we feel abandoned by all the world.

These natural mood-lifters also make us more gregarious. While large doses of opiates diminish the need for contact, in small quantities they stimulate it, as experiments with rats have shown.13 When you feel the sun shining on you, you will want to share your joy with others. People in good spirits are more sociable, presumably because a slightly elevated mood dissolves the anxiety that so often makes us shrink from human contact.

If you sleep with the same woman twice, you’ve joined the establishment.

—SLOGAN, 1968

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

—GLORIA STEINEM

The first of these bits of wisdom has faded a bit, along with the belief in the coming revolution. Men no longer have to live with five women (like the legendary German communard Rainer Langhans) to be “progressive.” But like so many ideas of the sixties, the hope that promiscuity offers an escape from the ennui of humdrum middle-class lives has left its mark. Who hasn’t secretly asked himself whether he isn’t a stick-in-the-mud for having had sex with the same person for years?

Gloria Steinem’s adage became an article of faith for “the single generation.” Why suffer the limitations of a lasting partnership when a group of good friends and the occasional affair might bring more happiness? But even if magazine articles and advice books are still published that endorse this perspective, for most people it doesn’t work.

Granted, people who are constantly changing lovers lead more exciting lives. But a commitment to boredom can sometimes be more rewarding. Being committed to a partner creates good feelings, and physical love strengthens a relationship. There is evidence that shows that humans, unlike most of nature’s creatures, are made for long-lasting ties to one partner. Most of us have a natural inclination toward monogamy, transmitted in our brains by complicated synapses in which the hormone oxytocin plays an important role. This may be a reason that lasting love relationships can give more warmth and a greater sense of security than friendships.

Surveys confirm this. They all conclude that people in couple-relationships are usually happier than single people. In the United States, for example, only 25 percent of unmarried people—and 40 percent of married adults—describe themselves as “very satisfied”—a finding that holds for both men and women. By no means is it impossible to be happy alone, but it’s easier if you’re part of a team.14

Single people suffer far more frequently from depression than those who are married, and the figure is still higher for people who are divorced.15 Both European and U.S. statistics show that married people are less likely to suffer from physical ailments than people who are single or divorced.16

Loving care plays a big role here. Good friends can give a lot of support, but only rarely do they replace a partnership, for the willingness of partners to be there for each other is almost always stronger.17 The mere touch of someone who is familiar and trusted can ease sadness. This, too, is caused by neurotransmitters like oxytocin and the opioids that are released in moments of tenderness.18

In short, a good partnership makes people happy. It is, along with the frequency of sex (to which it is related), the most important external factor determining life satisfaction. By comparison, financial well-being, work, home, and leisure activities play a much less important role. Nonetheless, we often spend much more time and energy on these things than on being there for the partner—something that is worth changing, for almost nothing ensures lasting happiness better than taking time for the other person and living the relationship intensely.

Gloria Steinem recognized this, if late. In 2000, at the age of sixty-three, she got married.