The Need for More Stimulation

One of the things happening in this culture now is that human beings have become very jaded in their experiences. There is a need for continual and more extreme stimulation. A lot of it relates to the stimulation that people have with television: murders, violence, sexual stimulation. All of this stimulation is taking place within the brain. MTV is a very powerful example of this — just massive stimulation.

Even Sesame Street, which in a lot of ways seems a very positive thing, is for teachers a disaster, because you are competing with entertainment. A child begins to think that you have to be entertained to learn: there have to be these cartoons coming in, and this and that, and it all has to be fast. There is a cartoon of a little boy sitting in front of a forest asking his father: what is the plot? So this culture has become massive stimulation. Toffler's fast world.

There is a beautiful film called Powaqqatsi — the second one — a wonderful film by a local filmmaker. One of the things that he does in it is that he has the third world in slow motion: you see people farming in Brazil and so on, traditional farming, all in slow motion. But then when he switches to America it is all fast motion. And it is interesting what he is juxtaposing: he shows people eating in fast food restaurants really fast. It is very, very strong to watch it.

But the point is that we are in a hyper-stimulatory state, and what happens when you reach thresholds is that you want more stimulation. There are people now who go out and do things to taste the moment, who become very extreme and violent: gangbangers. Adrenaline junkies.

There is the account of someone working in an intensive care unit who would go down to the emergency room sometimes; and it is really interesting that a lot of the nurses who work in emergency rooms, and the doctors, jump out of aeroplanes at the weekend. Hang gliding. Bungee jumping. Because if you work in intensive care — cracking a chest open, cardiac massage, very intense — they really get into the rush of adrenaline, and then at the weekend it is: what is there to do? That is an interesting phenomenon. It really is.

Adrenaline is a very powerful drug, and we forget that there really is such a thing: it is a very high drug. One of the things that happens when people see things that they should not see is that the heart begins to beat faster. They have done studies with people who watch pornography and things like that: stimulation, rapid heartbeat, adrenaline rushes, things like that — initially. But then they need more stimulation. And the end result is a snuff film, or something like that. There really are people for whom that is what they need, to be stimulated.

These are, from an Islamic worldview, very serious ways of attempting to assuage this emptiness, to feel alive. Now, for the Muslim, the goal in life is to reach a type of tranquillity, not stimulation. It is to reach a point where stimulation is not needed for one to feel alive: where what one feels alive through is a peace, an inner peace, which is achieved through worship, through prayer and these things.