The Molecule of More

THE MOLECULE OF MORE

to be jostled or even touched by other riders. There were nights when his wife

woke up at 3 am to find him in tears. He said, “When you get a flat tire,

an ordinary person calls the AAA. I call the suicide hotline.”

He was given the standard treatment for depression, an antidepressant

that changes the way the brain uses the H&N neurotransmitter serotonin,

and he had an excellent response. Over the course of about a month his

mood gradually improved until he was once again bright and cheerful. He

became more resilient and was able to enjoy the good things in his life. It

was a relief to his wife, as well. He thought it would be interesting to try

a higher dose of the medication, just to see what would happen, and his

doctor agreed. “It felt great,” he said at his next visit. “I was so happy,

there was nothing I needed to do. There was no reason to get out of bed in

the morning.” He and his doctor decided to reduce the dose to its previous

level, and his emotional balance returned.

The dramatic reaction this patient had to a serotonergic antidepressant
occurs in only a few people who have just the right combination of
genes and environment. But it’s a good illustration of how a person can
be disabled by both an excessive focus on the future and an excessive
enjoyment of the present.
Dopamine and the H&N neurotransmitters evolved to work
together. They often act in opposition to one another, but that helps
maintain stability among constantly firing brain cells. In  many instances, 
though, dopamine and H&N get thrown out of balance, especially on
the dopaminergic side. The modern world drives us to be all dopamine,
all the time. Too much dopamine can lead to productive misery, while
too much H&N can lead to happy indolence: the workaholic executive
versus the pot-smoking basement dweller. Neither one is living a truly
happy life or growing as a person. To live a good life, we need to bring
them back into balance.
We instinctively know that neither extreme is healthy, and that
may be one of the reasons we like stories about people who start out
with too  much of one  or  the  other and  in  the  end  find  balance. The 
movie Avatar provides an example of someone who starts out with too
much dopamine. A former Marine named Jake is hired to work for the