I've been reading Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke – a book about addiction, not creativity... but I couldn't stop reading it like it was about creativity.
Dopamine Nation: https://amzn.to/4tPSkCg
Turns out there's a reason for that. Neuroscientist David Linden found that creative people often have low-functioning dopamine systems, meaning we feel less baseline pleasure than average. Which means the dopamine economy we're living in right now (the phones, the scroll, the endless cheap hits) is particularly hard for people like us.
In this episode I get into the pain-pleasure seesaw, the marshmallow test, and the temptation nobody talks about.
The only marshmallow worth waiting for is the work itself.
But you have to earn it.
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