The activities of the human brain are self-rewarding, by the mechanism of the release of pleasurable chemicals. I should feel grateful to my brain for giving me these little fixes, but unlike a mouse who learns to push a tiny lever I haven't acquired all that much expertise about how to trigger the drugs. I'm like a hapless shivering junkie who keeps forgetting which corner to stand on. Maybe I don't know what success is. There's a sobering thought. I think I'll ignore it and have another drink. Have I ever felt awesomely wonderful as a result of a personal achievement that was in no way initiated or measured or mediated by the desires or goals or standards of anyone besides myself? If not, can I be said to exist, do I possess full personhood? Here I do, but would I in Canada? They still let me vote and drive a car. These capacities for self-reward are supposed to be inborn, or so I thought. I'm not supposed to have to do anything special, they're a self-regulating aspect of my mammalian heritage. I get confused, my aims become muddled and I forget how nice it feels to feel good, because feeling bad also feels good, but in a different way. A worse way. Feeling nothing at all can also feel good, especially if it follows on the heels of feeling terribly, terribly bad, like right after watching television for instance. With so many options available for feeling good why don't I feel good more often? Endorphins must be backed up in my head, there's a clog somewhere, I might need to get tapped like a maple tree to relieve the pressure, or employ one of those cranial snakes you can rent at Home Depot, next to the carpet cleaners. If you accidentally suck your brain out you don't get your deposit back, it's right there in the fine print. Actually, undischarged brain opioids probably drain out of a person in the form of spontaneous weeping, one of nature's merry pranks.