Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

As illogical as it may seem, evolution has programmed a lot of people to receive a psychologically-induced hit of dopamine when they are degraded or even tortured, called masochism. Masochism isn’t modern, religious devotees have long endured self-inflicted pain as a sign of piousness. In the past, people were doing all they could to survive; their everyday lives were defined by constant want & degradation, which is probably why the dopamine reward evolved, because those that got it survived while most of the other downtrodden did not. However, as society has progressed & matured, making things easier, providing excess time & comfort, it allows people to have luxury beliefs, and their underlying narcissistic tendencies & self-indulgence take over; release of dopamine becomes the goal. Masochism is an easy way to generate it because feeling guilt is up to the individual: people want to feel bad about the past indiscretions of their forefathers; they want to feel conflicted about being alive, that their presence is harming the earth; they want the worry & anxiety that their comfort is at the expense of the less fortunate; they want to feel undeserving, and will focus on anything negative that generates the sense of dopamine euphoria, their brains literally wallowing in neuropeptides, a biochemistry-driven combination of hubris, narcissism & masochism.