Zamzar

In your brain the down world is managed by a handful of chemicals—neurotransmitters, they’re called—that let you

experience satisfaction and enjoy whatever you have in the here and now.

But when you turn your attention to the world of up, your brain relies on a

different chemical—a single molecule—that not only allows you to move

beyond the realm of what’s at your fingertips, but also motivates you to pursue, to control, and to possess the world beyond your immediate grasp. It

drives you to seek out those things far away, both physical things and things

you cannot see, such as knowledge, love, and power.

Those down chemicals—call them the Here & Now s—allow you to experience what’s in front of you. They enable you to savor and enjoy, or perhaps to fight or run away, right now. The up chemical is different. It makes you desire what you don’t yet have, and drives you to seek new

things. It rewards you when you obey it, and makes you suffer when you

don’t. It is the source of creativity and, further along the spectrum, madness;

it is the key to addiction and the path to recovery; it is the bit of biology that

makes an ambitious executive sacrifice everything in pursuit of success,