Nick Nolte

You work at a job, and you reach a certain level, and you're a little satisfied, and you keep going at it a little more, and you finally finish it. You go, 'Ah,' all your dopamine receptor sites are full. You're satiated.

Software options proliferate extremely easily - too easily, in fact - because too many options create tools that can't ever be used intuitively. Intuitive actions confine the detail work to a dedicated part of the brain, leaving the rest of one's mind free to respond with attention and sensitivity to the changing texture of the moment.

I remember being 24 in Los Angeles. And up until that moment, when my mom would call my cell phone and it would ring, I would be flushed with some sort of excitement that we all have - a little dopamine rush, when my phone rings - and I'd look down, and it would say, 'Mom.' It used to feel like a job to pick that up.