When Pleasure Lies: From Craving to Contentment

``So if we could start to just reframe this, this accountability means pleasure before the king. Instead of treating each pleasure as a right, after all I've done, I've got a right to this. After all I've done, this is my this is what I deserve. I earned this, I'm gonna binge on it, or I'm gonna do the same. What if we just treat it as a small time limited gift from the father, and we just say, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, father. Can we do that? Can we just practice that this week, see what that does for us? Jesus, thank you for this little gift, this joke, this show, this snack. [00:34:39] (36 seconds)  #gratitudeNotEntitlement

That's all we're looking for. Heavenly Lord, give us a break here. All we're looking for is just to be able to control our lives like a little kingdom, a little cosmos where I say go and they go, or I say do this and they do that. I mean, that's isn't that too much to ask for a little king like me to have my own little kingdom? And god says, well, who's the king? That's where accountability comes in. Who's the actual king? [00:16:25] (27 seconds)  #whoseKing

that's the nice thing about the the smartphone. We got to pretend we're kings and queens, you know, with just a thumb. You can summon the the comedians, the jesters. You know, you can call the blue trucks and the brown trucks to your house with just, like, just the usually just with one thumb. Sometimes you have to use two. The dancing girls, they show up. I mean, everything you need as a king is in your hand as a as a smartphone user. It's kind of this amazing thing. [00:00:54] (31 seconds)  #digitalThrone

How do we consume as much you're like, you're the one that preaches forever. Like, no. That's not what I'm talking about. No. No. Like, how do we consume and and your time and your conscious attention? How much as much as possible. And so if you're not aware of this, if the product is free to you, who's the product? You're the product. Okay. So just as long as we understand that this new world that we're in, if it's free to you, then you're the product and somehow they're selling you to whatever. Right? [00:05:30] (28 seconds)  #youAreTheProduct

which if that's your story too, we can talk about that. That's fine. But the first president of Facebook, his name was Sean Parker. He was quoted in an interview saying, the thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first, was all about how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible. Ain't that sweet? [00:05:08] (22 seconds)  #designedForAttention

he says that means we need to give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on your photo or post or whatever. That's gonna get you to contribute more content, that's going to get you more likes and comments. It's a social validation feedback loop. Exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, he says, because you're exploiting the vulnerability in human psychology. And then later in the interview, he goes on to say, god only knows what it's doing to our children's brains. [00:06:00] (31 seconds)  #dopamineLoop

It's not going to fix just a little more, and you'll finally be content. Just a little more of this, a little more of that. And if you're thinking about our neuroscience thing, you're like, that's a lie. You're thinking about our phones and shows and and our games, keep hitting that want want want crave crave crave system, and contentment system is really quiet. Like, why did I ever just, like, feel like that was enough? That was good. I like that. That was good. Why why does one just one more episode, [00:23:19] (33 seconds)  #quietContentment

But on the so that's the lenses. There's a Ground Floor. Life is absurd. I've called it lenses every once in a while too, but 2nd Floor is like it's a gift. And then from the 3rd Floor with the skylight, you realize that I have oh, I'm accountable to god as well. I'm getting a different view of life. So I'll use the floors and the and the lenses interchangeably here. But have they have they done it? Have you gotten a deeper rest or just a bigger appetite for things? [00:26:10] (28 seconds)  #thirdFloorPerspective