I’ve gotten to a point in life where I think I can truthfully say that I detest drama in virtually all of its manifestations. It seems it was only a few short years ago that I abhorred only self generated, looking for a reason to act mental drama. But now I think I’ve grown to loathe damned near all of the theatrics we humans find so captivating.
Everyone will invariably have some drama enter their lives, it’s unavoidable, but believe it or not you have a choice in those moments to not act dramatically. I’m beginning to think that I’m in the minority with this opinion, but I’ve always felt that aplomb is the correct response to manage drama. A little poise goes a long way toward not creating more drama, if you know what I’m sayin.
Some people can’t seem to avoid being dramatic though, and some people don’t even fucking try. If you don’t make some kind of an effort to control yourself then you may not only be dramatic, but a drama addict as well.
And dramaddicts are a walking, talking, calamity just waiting to happen. What I particularly appreciate are the new age dramaddicts that think they’re Michael Moore or Ken Burns, and feel the necessity to film as many of their drama creations as possible. Of course, all of the video comes courtesy of a phone that’s smarter than most of the people holding the device, but regardless of how mental the dramaddicts appear on video they still feel the compulsion to share.
Sharing is a problem. I think that even the people who record a dramaddict having a mask meltdown in Safeway become part of that problem when they also decide to share. You’re enabling an addiction by providing the dramaddict the attention they so desperately crave.
It’s too bad that Dramamine is a motion sickness drug. The name would have been perfect for a sedative to calm these people the fuck down.
Mental public meltdowns aren’t the only variety of dramaddict that exists though. Those people just take their drama on the road. There are a host of other sub-species of the dramaddict that are equally damaging to the general mental health of society. They infest all media right across the spectrum from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube and all they do is create drama when there is no fucking need.
But let’s not confuse need with desire.
The desire for drama is strong with humanity. We might not need drama but we certainly want drama. I’m not sure why this need is so strong, but It’s almost as if drama is a requisite need for humanity, right along side food, water and oxygen.
We pollute our food and poison our air and water, so why the fuck not poison the remaining atmosphere with toxic drama? Seems reasonable right? Back in the day if you wanted to share your drama with the rest of the world, then you needed to be literate, and maybe have a compelling thought or an opinion that made sense. Now, all you need is a fucking phone or a Fox news opinion program, and voila, drama for stupid people.
I guess what puzzles me is what drama we find compelling and why. How did we arrive at a point where a good part of our population refuses to accept that climate change is going to produce some drama, and instead obsesses over the latest drivel from Donnie junior about sleepy Joe taking away their inalienable right to fucking cheeseburgers.
Jesus Christ, come on people, it’s time for a collective head shake. We have some real and pressing problems to deal with and we need to stop allowing ourselves to be distracted by bullshit from profiteers in bullshit.
But, for some strange reason we’re talking about cheeseburgers and cancel culture when we should be talking about floods and hurricanes and tornadoes and all the rest of the shit that comes with a warming planet.
But, nah.
Lets get fired up about some other kind of drama. Something that doesn’t require science or logic. Something emotional. Like religion, or a race or gender war. That makes lots of sense. And it’s not just the Americans that are easily distracted by the way. It just seems like its mostly Americans because there’s three hundred or so million of them next door to me, and the entire country seems infatuated with drama.
I just get this feeling though, that Miami and New Orleans could be underwater and the right and the left would be arguing about an inequitable distribution of floatation devices.
Meanwhile the flooding appears to not give one fuck who could afford life jackets.
I think that there’s a personal cost to people when we ignore the obvious. I think that we know that there are problems we need to face. I think that we understand that facing those problems is going to require change and maybe some sacrifice. I think people hate change and detest sacrifice, unless it’s someone else changing or sacrificing.
Then it’s easy.
I think our brain has subconsciously built up anxiety of the reality we’re trying to ignore. I think that our brain realizes that we need to expend that built up anxiety. So, we look for something else to lose our shit over. This provides the relief valve effect and we can carry on ignoring any inconvenient truth.
So we flock to the drama creators so they can provide us with an alternative target to an uncomfortable reality.
And just like fucking Amazon, they deliver.