Brain Chemistry (soul, choices, choice, preach, experience)

[BalanceFx]

A little more about me first. I took up smoking late in life. I was an advocate against smoking, I hated smoking and I would preach to smokers about the dangers.

A child of cancer whose step dad died of lung cancer you could imagine.

I worked out and played a particular sport which was odd but quite greuling. Handball. A lot like raquetball but much harder and makes use of both sides of the body. I was into running and weight lifting. I was in college, I owned a condo and my girlfriend was absolutely gorgeous.

I had a crap car... Didnt make much for money but I was still in college. I figured that stuff would take care of itself.

I was still on the fence religious wise. If pushed at any point I would have snapped into an atheist instantaneously but the events of my life could have led me down no other path.

Nonetheless lots of misfortune headed my way. To save you the story I will say where I ended up. One of my closest friends had died and I was penniless, living in a friends basement, no girlfriend and even my POS I called a car was gone. My condo history and I no longer in college. Hehe I didnt even have a job nor any prospects.

Nonetheless I had been here before. In fact I don't think I ever felt more like me in my entire adult life. I had been confused. I was staying on the path of the straight and narrow and letting my faith be tested. Like Job! I seriously believed this at a time but I didn't tie it to god testing me. I felt someone else was.

I kept running. 10 miles a night. I was in the middle of the country so there were few cars and lots of hills to challenge me and to push my endurance. I would run like my life depended on it always pushing myself. I would stop half way through a run for sit ups and push ups, the latter I did on my knuckles as per my rudimentary training in the martial arts had taught me.

But then more things happened. Things I never expected. Lots of choices I had to make and not all of them were correct in hindsight. Still one night I found myself running 7 miles to a convienant store that was open 24 hours and buying a pack of cigerettes. I had never tried a cigerette before and the experience was religious. There was no peer pressure whatsoever.

Suffice to say I had been smoking ever since.

I am very comfortable when I smoke. I know what will happen, I know the effects, the brief rush, the shortness of breath and the escalation of my pulse and BP. All are quite soothing which is a rationalization since a cigerette is a stimulant. Still I find smoking very soothing.

And to the point of the post. Hah and you thought I was just rambling. (I kinda was hehe)

I have tried several times to quit and all were unsuccessful. Once I quit for 3 months! But still I was smoking again. Recently I started taking Chantix. And like a switch all those familiar feelings with smoking are gone.

There is no pleasure in smoking. Its dry, stale and stinks. I dunno if my BP and pulse goes up but all I can say is I am actually getting annoyed when I smoke. Nothing like before. I know if I keep taking this I will quit but that brings me to brain chemistry. Smoking is extremely addictive to about 1/5 of the population. They say only 1 in 5 who try smoking will ever actually become addicted. Still it is considered highly addictive moreso then even heroin etc. Granted Chantix wont work for everyone there are some side effects.

To me this seems to validate more and more that we are our brains. I'm sure they will eventually be able to flip all the switches in our brain and who knows what memories and events are defined to those switches? Who knows what will happen?

We know through experimentation with magnetic fields and as crazy as it may sound, direct infusion of electricity into the brain that we can both activate and deactivate certain parts of the brain. Anesthesiologists are laughing right now saying good show shirlock havent you had like 5 surgeries already?

This knowledge is growing every hour and the new papers of neuroscience point to as much. We are complex creatures but by no means are we indecipherable. Think of how far we have come in the last 100 years. Now break it down into 10 year chunks... where will we be in even as short amount as 10 years from now? Where will you be?

I know there is some draw to say you have this eternal soul and you will live forever or have lived before or will live again... But thats all hearsay. Theres no evidence or facts. What I am talking about is facts. What if your eternal soul or you is just the expressed portion of small part of your DNA which is localized into 1 cubic inch of brain matter that can be turned off and on with a simple chemical? What if your belief system and memories can be contorted and changed at the whim of a neuroscientist with a pulsating electromagnet? You would never argue after but only before...

I find brain chemistry odd in short. We are by today's standards complex creatures and just 100 years ago we were almost an absolute mystery. In 10 years we may be saying we are advanced creatures and after 50 just simple carbon based lifeforms.

Who knows. Just some thoughts. Take them as you will.