This age in which we are living is an era of abundance, we have everything around us in way more quantity than human evolution has ever seen. Yet instead of becoming advantageous to us, this is back firing, but why?
As it turns out, humans of this time have became prey to the utilities they once created for their comfort and ease of existence, they unknowingly started moving on a trajectory which was meant to be just another human discovery. While this could go on and discuss the time of hunter-gatherers and how this all started, but we will keep that for some other day. Today what interests me are the recent happenings, primarily results after the Industrial Revolution.
To begin with, I would like to discuss about a concept The Scarcity Mindset, and if you are thinking what this is? then lets try to understand it.
Have you ever over ate and after that felt Why did I do this?, then very well, you are aware about this idea. Scarcity mindset works on the principle of opportunity, unpredictable or variable rewards, and ability to quickly repeat the process. Now, there has to be an opportunity first, something that your brain thinks is valuable and will improve your life, because then only you will act on it. Then comes the variable reward stimuli, that keeps the brain fascinated and suspenseful about the reward. And lastly there should be an easy way to repeat the behavior, and felicidades (which means congratulations), you are in the scarcity loop.
Let's see this through some examples. Hands down to this entity, single handedly deflected the course of entire homo-sapiens evolution, the one and only Social Media. I am sure you have seen this somewhere, the relentless scrolling through posts, shorts, reels etc. on various social media platforms. It could be your siblings, your friends, or it could be you. Have you ever thought that maybe you do not want it to do, your consciousness knows that I should be doing something else, yet the scroll thing carries on, that's the scarcity loop in motion. Your brain is intrigued by finding something there, it could be a funny post, a motivational post, a general post or something else, your brain sees there is an opportunity that it may find something which will in someway give it the feel good feeling. Then comes the actual reward part which obviously you do not know what will come up next, will it be a funny video, if yes then more funny than the last or less, or will it be motivational video to charge me up, your brain is intrigued by what is next and this is what keeps it to force you to keep scrolling, the whole idea is what is coming up next? And then the repetition part, which is obviously easy, you just have to scroll.
Another very relatable example is the over eating. For more than 99% of human evolution time, humans lived in food scarcity. But just in last 200years that too I am saying at most, humans are having food in abundance, variety of choices, and 24x7 availability of restaurants, food corners, cafes etc. So when presented with an option to eat, we often over consume. The reason for this is, our brains have evolved to store energy in form of calories, this was advantageous to our hunter-gatherer ancestors as they were always in the threat of famine, but we are not. Yet due to our not knowing of this behavior, when we see a variety of food and we start eating, with each different taste, it hints our brain of that being a possible source of calory, neurons start firing and we often result in overeating from what was required.
Modern food products like chips and chocolates contain far more calory then their actual source from which they are derived. Also the process that are used today like frying in oil, baking, addition of sugar etc. this all triggers sensory pleasure often overriding rationality and causing overconsumption. The obvious example are fast food corners, think for a moment about your favorite fast food, and what it feels when you eat it, then re-read this paragraph.
So what should be done? Well obviously we cannot get rid of the structures we have today completely, but what we can do is, to introduce a balance. This message is not only for overeating but, for overconsuming anything, be it social-media, food or anything else you want to think of. The key is to have a balance, and not to be trapped in the cycle of unending loop, the brain should be your companion, your buddy, in moving through the challenges of your life, and that's for you to train it. Train it to focus on activities that have enduring fulfilment and to lead a life with intention and consciousness.