When talking about tolerances it used to be mostly related to one thing: drugs. You would complain about how you had such a high tolerance for caffeine and you had to drink so much coffee each day just to not get jitters. Or you would realise how much you were spending on cigarettes after years of daily smoking. For some of the population, it was a matter of having to turn to crime to satisfy a tolerance for a harder drug that was now ruining your life after initially being just a social catalyst. This is how tolerances operate: insidiously. You only recognise you have a tolerance for something by the time it has rooted itself deep into your daily life, as it has been hiding in your daily routine for so long.

However, tolerances are not limited to just drugs. Here are some examples that will apply to a lot of you reading this:

  • Pornography: You lost your mind as a young man when you first saw a pair of tits on a VHS or in a magazine. Now you masturbate to HD tranny porn to satisfy your urges. Pornography tolerance is becoming mainstream knowledge now and a lot of people have come to recognise the damage routine pornography consumption imposes.

  • Video Games: You could spend all day as a kid sat on your ass playing a somewhat repetitive 64bit game. Playing those same games today would be unbearably boring, apart from a sense of nostalgia. Today you play 1080p online multiplayer games at 60 frames-per-second which are constantly being updated with new story-lines.

  • Vehicles:: You were so happy when you got your first car: you could go anywhere, do anything, the world was your oyster. But now? Your current one might still have 50,000 miles left in it, but it's junk! Sure, it still gets you from A - B just as well as the brand new sports car you have your eye on, but it's boring to drive!

  • Gadgets: I remember when I got my first colour screen phone, I was so happy because it had the most amazing feature: It had a camera which could zoom! Gone were the days of having to get closer to an object to photograph it! Now, we feel it necessary to spend a significant portion of our income on a new phone because the one that we have at the moment is a little bit slow, and the new one has all sorts of cool gizmos and gimmicks that we would never use.

  • Your Job: Remember how you felt when you got your first real job? Whatever the field, chances are it was fulfilling work. The paycheck was enough and you were happy to be contributing to society in your own little way. Now? You know that Dave at that other company is earning way more than you, and they have a newer office, and it's about time for you to move up the corporate ladder anyway...

  • Media: You used to be happy to catch your favourite show once a week, now you pay subscription fees to various services which shovel hours of HD footage at you. You used to be happy with whatever was on your favourite radio station, now you listen to dozens of different artists and genres. I work with guys who will do their work all day with headphones in, some rarely listen to the same song more than once a week.

Why is this a bad thing? For some objects of tolerance (porn, drugs) the detrimental result of a high tolerance is obvious. You are shameful, lethargic, socially anxious. The common denominator for all the aforementioned tolerances is:

You are miserable because you never feel satisfied at your current level.

You are miserable because you want for a nicer car, a better job, a newer phone. I'm sure some people reading this feel I'm preaching to the choir but I'll press on.

Why does this happen? Disclaimer time: This is not my field of study. I am just a guy with enough experience, connecting some of the dots in his own life, and sharing this with you. The reason we have never-ending tolerances is a two-parter: First, a pre-historic reward circuit exposed to dazzling amounts of unnatural stimuli. Second, a consumerist society. Put these two together, and you have manufacturers that pump out newer, better, more expensive products targeted towards a brain that is trying to obtain the best of everything on offer. When this brain was operating in its' normal habitat thousands of years ago, having the nicest hut or the biggest spear was likely to lead to long term happiness because such things put you at the top of the social chain. This drive in today's world leads to misplaced material desires.

What are we to do? The first step is not to increase your tolerances any further. If you already see detrimental effects (you spend too much of your income on your car, you can never find a TV show you enjoy, you spend too much time playing video games) then skip straight to the second step: reduce your tolerance. When your car stops running for good, buy a cheaper one, not the new model. Limit yourself to an hour of TV a day. You need to come to terms with the fact that you will never get that same level of temporary satisfaction that you feel just after increasing a tolerance, but you will achieve long term fulfilment when you routinely deny your desires. A lot of the conclusions I draw here are inspired by a book that has helped me see the bigger picture: A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine

How does this relate to TRP: Ultimately we all come here because we want fulfilment in life. Many of us think that comes through more frequent sex, the more seasoned know that sex is a minor part of fulfilment in a man's life. Pursuing ever higher tolerances will make you miserable when, years down the line, you are attempting to sustain and grow tolerances which have taken up so much time, money and exertion that they now consume you.