Paradox Of Generosity Quotes

That, paradoxically, narrowing her concerns had made her more capable of love and generosity and empathy and, yes, even peace and justice. It was the difference between loving something out of duty—because the movement required it of you—and loving something you actually loved. Love—real, genuine, unasked-for love—made room for more of itself, it turned out. Love, when freely given, duplicates and multiplies.

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.

There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we think always of wisdom, tolerance, kindliness, generosity, humility; and the qualities of cruelty, greed, self-interest, graspingness, and rapacity are universally considered undesirable. And yet in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success…Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox.

Liberalism - it is well to recall this today - is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy that is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at so noble an attitude, so paradoxical, so refined, so acrobatic, so antinatural. Hence, it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth.

Rather than leaving generous people on the short end of an unequal bargain, practices of generosity are actually likely instead to provide generous givers with essential goods in life—happiness, health, and purpose—which money and time themselves simply cannot buy. That is an empirical fact well worth knowing.

Our exceptionalness is not for us but for others. That is the paradox at the heart of who we are. So what makes us different has nothing to do with jingoism and nationalistic chest beating. If we have ever been great, it is only because we have been good. If we have ever been great, it is only because we have longed to help make others great too. That earnest humility and generosity must be attended to.  •

Speaking truth to bullshit and practicing civility start with knowing ourselves and knowing the behaviors and issues that both push into our own BS or get in the way of being civil. If we go back to BRAVING and our trust checklist, these situations require a keen eye on: 1. Boundaries. What’s okay in a discussion and what’s not? How do you set a boundary when you realize you’re knee-deep in BS? 2. Reliability. Bullshitting is the abandonment of reliability. It’s hard to trust or be trusted when we BS too often. 3. Accountability. How do we hold ourself and others accountable for less BS and more honest debate? Less off-loading of emotion and more civility? 4. Vault. Civility honors confidentiality. BS ignores truth and opens the door to violations of confidentiality. 5. Integrity. How do we stay in our integrity when confronted with BS, and how do we stop in the midst of our own emotional moment to say, “You know what, I’m not sure this conversation is productive” or “I need to learn more about this issue”? 6. Nonjudgment. How do we stay out of judgment toward ourselves when the right thing to do is say, “I actually don’t know much about this. Tell me what you know and why it’s important to you.” How do we not go into “winner/loser” mode and instead see an opportunity for connection when someone says to us, “I don’t know anything about that issue”? 7. Generosity. What’s the most generous assumption we can make about the people around us? What boundaries have to be in place for us to be kinder and more tolerant? I know that the practice of speaking truth to bullshit while being civil feels like a paradox, but both are profoundly important parts of true belonging.

As beasts are beneath human restraints, gods are above them... It would be foolish and untruthful to deny the appeal of exalted, godlike intoxication....We have seen the paradox that these godlike exalted moments often correspond to times when the men who have survived them say that they have acted like beasts....Above all, a sense of merely human virtue, a sense of being valued and of valuing anything seems to have fled their lives....However, all of our virtues come from not being gods. Generosity is meaningless to a god, who never suffers shortage or want. Courage is meaningless to a god, who is immortal and can never suffer permanent injury. The godlike berserk state can destroy the capacity for virtue. Whether the berserker is beneath humanity as an animal, above it as a god, or both, he is cut off from all human community when he is in this state.

generosity involved in proactively forgiving other people. This form of generosity, and the positive feelings it evokes in generous forgivers, have been shown by studies to reduce stress, tension, and sadness, and to lead to lower heart rates, lower skin conduction levels, and lower blood pressure. By contrast, those who ungenerously hold grudges are more angry, feel less in control of their lives, and, partly as a result, exhibit symptoms of unhealthy physical conditions.

The great paradox of existence may be that only the dead certainty of losing everything makes anything at all worth keeping.

to Tocqueville, and reiterated by Robert Bellah and collaborators in their landmark study of American life Habits of the Heart, this pursuit of what one does not have makes it difficult for people to form bonds with one another. Their minds “are more anxious and on edge.” Because “they clutch everything,” they can “hold nothing fast.

If the secret core of potlatch is the reciprocity of exchange, why is this reciprocity not asserted directly, why does it assume the “mystified” form of two consecutive acts each of which is staged as a free voluntary display of generosity? Here we encounter the paradoxes of forced choice, of freedom to do what is necessary, at its most elementary: I have to do freely what I am expected to do. (If, upon receiving a gift, I immediately return it to the giver, this direct circulation would amount to an extremely aggressive gesture of humiliation, it would signal that I refused the other’s gifts — recall those embarrassing moments when elderly people forget and give us last year’s present once again … ) …the reciprocity of exchange is in itself thoroughly ambiguous; at its most fundamental, it is destructive of the social bond, it is the logic of revenge, tit for tat. To cover this aspect of exchange, to make it benevolent and pacific, one has to pretend that each person’s gift is free and stands on its own. This brings us to potlatch as the “pre-economy of the economy,” its zero-level, that is, exchange as the reciprocal relation of two non-productive expenditures. If the gift belongs to Master and exchange to the Servant, potlatch is the paradoxical exchange between Masters. Potlach is simultaneously the zero-level of civility, the paradoxical point at which restrained civility and obscene consumption overlap, the point at which it is polite to behave impolitely.

Speaking truth to bullshit and practicing civility start with knowing ourselves and knowing the behaviors and issues that both push into our own BS or get in the way of being civil. If we go back to BRAVING and our trust checklist, these situations require a keen eye on: 1. Boundaries. What’s okay in a discussion and what’s not? How do you set a boundary when you realize you’re knee-deep in BS? 2. Reliability. Bullshitting is the abandonment of reliability. It’s hard to trust or be trusted when we BS too often. 3. Accountability. How do we hold ourself and others accountable for less BS and more honest debate? Less off-loading of emotion and more civility? 4. Vault. Civility honors confidentiality. BS ignores truth and opens the door to violations of confidentiality. 5. Integrity. How do we stay in our integrity when confronted with BS, and how do we stop in the midst of our own emotional moment to say, “You know what, I’m not sure this conversation is productive” or “I need to learn more about this issue”? 6. Nonjudgment. How do we stay out of judgment toward ourselves when the right thing to do is say, “I actually don’t know much about this. Tell me what you know and why it’s important to you.” How do we not go into “winner/loser” mode and instead see an opportunity for connection when someone says to us, “I don’t know anything about that issue”? 7. Generosity. What’s the most generous assumption we can make about the people around us? What boundaries have to be in place for us to be kinder and more tolerant? I know that the practice of speaking truth to bullshit while being civil feels like a paradox, but both are profoundly important parts of true belonging. Carl Jung wrote, “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.” We are complex beings who wake up every day and fight against being labeled and diminished with stereotypes and characterizations that don’t reflect our fullness. Yet when we don’t risk standing on our own and speaking out, when the options laid before us force us into the very categories we resist, we perpetuate our own disconnection and loneliness. When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.

variety of kinds of practices of generosity are positively and significantly associated with five important good life outcomes. Giving money, volunteering, being relationally generous, being a generous neighbor and friend, and personally valuing the importance of being a generous person are all significantly, positively correlated with greater personal happiness, physical health, a stronger sense of purpose in life, avoidance of symptoms of depression, and a greater interest in personal growth.

The power paradox is this: we rise in power and make a difference in the world due to what is best about human nature, but we fall from power due to what is worst. We gain a capacity to make a difference in the world by enhancing the lives of others, but the very experience of having power and privilege leads us to behave, in our worst moments, like impulsive, out-of-control sociopaths. How we handle the power paradox guides our personal and work lives and determines, ultimately, how happy we and the people we care about will be. It determines our empathy, generosity, civility, innovation, intellectual rigor, and the collaborative strength of our communities and social networks. Its ripple effects shape the patterns that make up our families, neighborhoods, and workplaces, as well as the broader patterns of social organization that define societies and our current political struggles.

The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories' 카톡☎ppt33☎ 〓 라인☎pxp32☎ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything. 팔팔정팝니다,팔팔정파는곳,팔팔정구입방법,팔팔정구매방법,팔팔정지속시간,팔팔정복용법,팔팔정부작용,팔팔정약효,팔팔정후기 The nun: 'Love is free yet binds us' Love is more easily experienced than defined. As a theological virtue, by which we love God above all things, it seems remote until we encounter it enfleshed, so to say, in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing. 구구정팝니다,팔팔정파는곳,네노마정파는곳,센트립파는곳,엠빅스파는곳,비닉스파는곳,프릴리지파는곳,비맥스파는곳,비그알엑스파는곳,요힘빈파는곳,스페니쉬파는곳 Maybe, I do not just “absorb” your love; but because the love overpowers me and I am unable to dispute and refuse it... Do you know? It’s you who light up my life! And I stubbornly believe that such love can only be experienced once in my life. Because of love, we won’t be lonely anymore; because of yearning, we taste more loneliness.

The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment' 스페니쉬판매,스페니쉬파는곳,스페니쉬구입방법,스페니쉬구매방법,스페니쉬복용법,스페니쉬부작용,스페니쉬판매사이트,스페니쉬약효,스페니쉬후기 The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing. Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbor, God and so on all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided, tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, and unconditional. At its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die. 우선 클릭해서 감사드립니다.클릭한만큼 제품도 실망드리지 않습니다.정품진품으로 확실한 약효를 보여드리는곳입니다 팔팔정,구구정,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스,엠빅스,비닉스,센트립 등 많은 제품 취급합니다 원하신분들 지나가지 마시고 연락 주시구요,최선을 다해 단골님으로 모셔드리겠습니다 Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. 비아그라가격,시알리스가격,레비트라가격,구구정가격,팔팔정가격,엠빅스가격,비닉스가격,센트립가격,센돔가격,포르테라가격 Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories' What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything. The nun: 'Love is free yet binds us' Love is more easily experienced than defined. As a theological virtue, by which we love God above all things, it seems remote until we encounter it enfleshed, so to say, in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing.

The physicist: 'Love is chemistry' 카톡►ppt33◄ 〓 라인►pxp32◄ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defense and parental support of children and to promote feelings of safety and security. 팔팔정파는곳,팔팔정팝니다,팔팔정구입방법,팔팔정구매방법,팔팔정판매,구구정파는곳,구구정팝니다,구구정구입방법,구구정구매방법,구구정지속시간 The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment' The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing. Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbor, God and so on all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided, tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, and unconditional. At its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die. love everyone who walks into our life.It must be fate to get acquainted in a huge crowd of people... I feel, the love that Osho talks about, maybe is a kind of pure love beyond the mundane world, which is full of divinity and caritas, and overflows with Buddhist allegorical words and gestures, but, it seems that I cannot see through its true meaning forever... The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories' What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything. The nun: 'Love is free yet binds us' Love is more easily experienced than defined. As a theological virtue, by which we love God above all things, it seems remote until we encounter it enfleshed, so to say, in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing.

What is love" was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012, according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the fields of science, literature, religion and philosophy to give their definition of the much-pondered word. 카톡►ppt33◄ 〓 라인►pxp32◄ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 네노마정파는곳,네노마정구입방법,네노마정복용법,네노마정처방 The physicist: 'Love is chemistry' Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defense and parental support of children and to promote feelings of safety and security. The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment' The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing. Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbor, God and so on all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided, tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, and unconditional. At its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die. The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories' What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything. The nun: 'Love is free yet binds us' Love is more easily experienced than defined. As a theological virtue, by which we love God above all things, it seems remote until we encounter it enfleshed, so to say, in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing.

The staggering paradox of generosity is, more we share the more we have.

If a connoisseur of the irony of political life is struck solemn by it, if he talks of tragic irony, then he is a ‘wet’ Machiavellian, a Christian. If he is fascinated by it, intellectually interested, he is a central Machiavellian, like the master himself. If he is amused by the irony of political life, he is an extreme Machiavellian, a cynic, a man who enjoys the sufferings and embarrassments of others. Just as Machiavellians do not understand the nature of tragedy, so Grotians are unable to understand the structure or texture of irony, which has several strands. The first is that of mere accident. Thus Cesare Borgia made many precautions against Alexander VI's death… Machiavelli recalls: ‘On the day that Julius II was elected, he told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never foreseen that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die... Another strand of historical irony is multiple or cumulative causation of a single result. Thus there were many mistakes in Louis XII's policy in Italy: he destroyed the small powers; aggrandized a greater power, the papacy; and called in a foreign power, Spain. He did not settle in Italy, nor send colonies to Italy, and he weakened the Venetians... A third strand is the single causation of opposite results, or paradox. Marxists like this notion: the bourgeoisie created simultaneously a single world economy and the extreme of international anarchy… A fourth strand of irony is self-frustration, or failure. Men intend one result and produce another... Japan, too, by attempting to conquer China, did much to make China instead of herself the future Great Power of the Orient... A fifth strand in historical irony is that the same policy, in different circumstances, will produce different effects... The sixth and last strand is that contrary policies, in different circumstances, can produce the same effects. This is discussed in an unintentionally amusing way in The Discourses (bk III), when Machiavelli discusses whether harsh methods or mild are the more efficacious. He lists examples where humanity, kindness, common decency, and generosity paid political dividends, including Fabricius' rejection of the offer to poison Pyrrhus. But Hannibal obtained fame and victory by exactly opposite methods: cruelty, violence, rapine, and perfidy.

His endearing traits, in many instances, were the mirror images of the characteristics that made him so difficult to bear at times. His need to control, for example, manifested itself positively in his tenderly protective and nurturing side; the exaggerated self-gratification brought on by his stardom and power was equaled, and possibly surpassed, by his legendary generosity; his double standard reflected the southern tendency to place a woman on a pedestal as a creature to be revered, almost worshiped; his egocentricity, when reversed, gave Elvis an almost supernatural ability to empathize. Elvis Presley was a man of many paradoxes—alternately megalomaniacal and humble, oversexed yet strangely prudish.

Here is the sole effort we must make: we must give grace as much access to our lives as possible. First, in some quiet pocket of our day, let’s immerse ourselves in the true and surprising story of God. Let’s wear out the bindings of our Bibles, irreverently spill coffee on their pages, and ask God to drive his words straight through the bone and marrow of our thinking and intending and desiring. Let’s turn to God with all the prayerful hope that his grace is sufficient to meet us in our wondering and wandering. With God’s help, let’s then put on new habits of being: honesty, sexual purity, generosity, courage, patience. Let’s take up the ancient disciplines of solitude and silence, prayer and fasting, worship and study, fellowship and confession, never thinking that God’s business is information but transformation. As there is failure, let us confess; as there is renewed intention, let us seek accountability and help. (We’re damned to think that a godly life is a solitary one.) Let’s join the great company of sinners and saints in a local congregation and commit together to put one foot in front of another every day for the glory of God. Here is the sole effort we must make: we must give grace as much access to our lives as possible. God is a speaking God—and we are meant to be his responsive people. All of it is grace.

Before Luther's vehemence many humanists and others desirous of reform in the church now began to lose confidence that he was the prophet for whom they so earnestly waited. Erasmus had committed himself firmly to neutrality. Now his hostility to Luther hardened. A Louvain theologian, Peter Barbirius, tried to coax him into an alliance against Luther. Erasmus replied bitterly on August 13, 1521. He said he had read less than a dozen pages of Luther, and he reproached those who had attacked Luther as a seditious person inciting the common people to revolt-as Latomus had done, although Erasmus did not mention him by name. His bitterness and hostility extended to the Lutheran camp and to those Lutherans who "by odious means" had tried to seduce him to their side. Yet, said he to Barbirius, "I fear that they are very numerous who with mighty invective attack secondary propositions among Luther such as, Although one may do good works, they are sinful,' although they themselves do not believe in that which creates the foundation of our faith, that the soul survives the death of the body."'' Erasmus called such a paradoxical statement a "secondary proposition," and we may be tempted to follow his lead. On one level Luther's declaration that all good works are tainted with sin sounds like modern questions based on sociobiology and psychological inquiry. Is selfless human action possible, or is there in the very performance of an unselfish act a superior sense of generosity and magnanimity that are desirable emotional rewards for benevolence? At a certain point such questions may seem to lead only to sophomoric squabbles over meaningless issues. For Luther something grand and fundamental was at stake. That was that morality could not become a substitute for intimate involvement in the drama of redemption. To those satisfied with their conduct in the world (as most of us usually are) Luther's message was one of radical introspection, intended to drive us not to the enumeration of our sinful acts but to the examination of the spirit that motivated them. In the complexity of that infinite rejection of our own power of disinterested benevolence, we were to be driven to a saving despair about ourselves and into the arms of Christ, who alone could save us. Morality without Christ might have value in the world in helping people get along with one another, and Luther never denied the role of reason in helping human beings create orderly societies. By his assertion that we sin when we do good works, he made a frontal assault on Renaissance intellectuals enamored not only with classical literature but with the proud sense of culture that was part of it. He implicitly attacked the pride not only of those who found virtue in giving alms, going on pilgrimage, and the like but also of those who claimed to be good because they imitated virtuous men of classical times. Luther made Christ the only virtue and made it impossible to speak of goodness in any way without calling Christ into the argument.

Norepinephrine: The Wake-Up Neurotransmitter One of norepinephrine’s effects on the brain is to sharpen attention. As we saw earlier, norepinephrine (aka noradrenaline) can function as both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. When we perceive stress and activate the fight-or-flight response, the brain produces bursts of norepinephrine, triggering anxiety. But sustained and moderate secretion can also produce a beneficial result in the form of heightened attention, even euphoria, and meditation has been shown to produce a rise in norepinephrine in the brain. A modest dose of norepinephrine is also associated with reduced beta brain waves. 5.11. Norepinephrine: your wake-up molecule. Notice the paradox here. Norepinephrine is associated with both anxiety and attentiveness. How do you get enough to be alert, but not so much you’re stressed? Surrender is the key. Steven Kotler, co-author of Stealing Fire, says that stress neurochemicals like norepinephrine actually prime the brain for flow states. At first, the meditator is frustrated by Monkey Mind. But if she surrenders, despite the perpetual self-chatter of the DMN, she enters the next phase of flow, which is focus. She has hacked her biology, using the negative experience of mind wandering as a springboard to flow. Norepinephrine’s molecular structure is similar to its cousin, epinephrine. While epinephrine works on a number of sites in the body, norepinephrine works exclusively on the arteries. When both dopamine and norepinephrine are present in the brain at the same time, they amplify focus. Attention becomes sharp, while perception is enhanced. Staying alert is a key function of the brain’s attention circuit, which keeps you focused on the object of your meditation and counteracts the wandering mind. It also stops you from becoming drowsy, an occupational hazard for meditators. That’s because pleasure neurotransmitters such as serotonin and melatonin (for which serotonin is the precursor) can put you to sleep if not balanced by alertness-producing norepinephrine. Again, the ratios are the key. Oxytocin: The Hug Drug 5.12. Oxytocin: your cuddle molecule. Oxytocin is produced by the hypothalamus, part of the brain’s limbic system. When activated, neurons in the hypothalamus stimulate the pituitary gland to release oxytocin into the bloodstream. So even though oxytocin is produced in the brain, it has effects on the body as well, giving it the status of a hormone. It is one of a group of small protein molecules called neuropeptides. A closely related neuropeptide is vasopressin. All mammals produce some variant of these neuropeptides. Oxytocin promotes bonding between humans. It is responsible for maternal feelings and physically prepares the female body for childbirth and nursing. It is generated through physical touch but also by emotional intimacy. Oxytocin also facilitates generosity and trust within a group. Oxytocin is the hormone associated with the long slow waves of delta. A researcher hooking subjects up to an EEG found that touch stimulated greater amounts of delta, with certain regions of the skin being more sensitive. The biggest effect was produced by tapping the cheek, as we do in EFT. It produced an 800% spike in delta.

Heart surgery, space travel, and comic opera all depend on advances that would have amazed our distant ancestors. More important from an evolutionary point of view, however, they also depend on capacities for a quite exceptional ability to work together, including tolerance, trust, and understanding. Those are some of the qualities that cause our species to be thought of as exceptionally “good.” In short, a great oddity about humanity is our moral range, from unspeakable viciousness to heartbreaking generosity. From a biological perspective, such diversity presents an unsolved problem. If we evolved to be good, why are we also so vile? Or if we evolved to be wicked, how come we can also be so benign?