I used to like drama. I guess I still do, but more in a motion picture or TV show kind of way where actors merely act out their lines, rather than trying to really be dramatic in life, which is a whole other matter.
I know people who revel in drama. I’m not really sure why, though I profess to once enjoying tons of drama in my own life.
It’s kind of a circle jerk, though. The reason is simple. If you really love drama and sharing it with everyone around you, soon you end up with only drama queens in your life who want to share their drama with you as well. It’s like that old game with a baseball bat where you see who goes first. You place hand over hand, seeing who comes out on top.
Only with drama, there’s no eagle, no trumping. Each piece of drama piles on the one before it, then circles around, eventually coming back to the beginning where nothing is resolved because, quite frankly, that actually takes work.
Drama requires no work. All it takes is a descent into an moment. Fuel it with some pseudo intrigue, add a dash or two of conspiracy if you like, top it off with a little innuendo masked by self-righteousness and voila! – you are the center of attention, the star!
When you’re in the midst of drama, it’s hard to see all this for what it is – complete nonsense. It does absolutely nothing to propel you or the world forward; it only serves to hold you back.
I’ve certainly had my share of it, even recently. In the old days, I would be vying for the Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance myself. There was more drama than I had hours to fill a day with. I would ruminate, place calls (we didn’t have email back then), whisper to others in small groups, spread rumors, make rash judgments and draw those infamous lines in the sand that were eventually crossed. Then there was the obligatory stewing, festering, blaming and bridge burning in the aftermath.
When someone didn’t want to do a dramatic reading with me of the drama I had written, I would read lines from theirs instead.
And where did it lead? Certainly not to an award of any kind, except perhaps “Biggest Idiot in a Lifetime Original Drama.”
What I came to find was that drama only existed in my life because I had no life. Having a life takes a lot of work, at least one where honesty, transparency and honor are the pillars that support every aspect of your existence here on earth.
It’s far easier to become mired in the quicksand of drama than to build something of substance upon those pillars. I mean, the pillars themselves are damned hard to build because all your drama friends want you to read some more lines in their bullsh** saga, so you are on your own.
Instead, you end up circle jerking some more because it seems far easier and satisfying, especially when you wrap a flag of self-righteousness around you so that you can claim a higher purpose than there really is. In the end, it’s just drama, nothing more. A lot of mental masturbation that leads absolutely nowhere.
I guess that’s fine, if that’s all you want out of life. After all, drama is the “Squirrel” of our lives. We start to do some serious work, actually making some headway in being a better person, finding a way to a better career, furthering our search for who we are, etc., and then “Squirrel!”, we sink right back into the quicksand and revel in its warm, all-consuming welcome.
To each his own, I suppose. Unfortunately, we try to invite others into the quicksand to revel in the drama of a moment with us. We try to do it innocently enough, bringing up an issue that we know others care about or want to hear about. To lure us in, they spin fantastic tales of intrigue, complete with all the back stories any good drama has.
If drama queens are one thing, they are excellent storytellers and they know their audience well. They have all the skill of Mark Twain as they suck you into the story, bringing it to life with all the tricks of the trade: the suspense, the horror, the injustice, the travail, the veiled hope, the sadness and pseudo triumph. They have it all down pat, pulling little snippets out of their bag of dramatics to hook you line and sinker.
It’s fortunate that I have finally learned to avoid the bait. Oh, sure, I will let them have a moment or two to spin their little tale, then I will turn tail and leave. I will politely or curtly tell them that while I am sorry that they are immersed in this dramatic scene, I’m not interested in stepping onto the stage with them.
I will be more than happy to watch from the wings or from the back row of the house. I will applaud their performance but I won’t take their lines to heart. Quite frankly, I don’t have time anymore. I have way too much life to live to watch others fritter away their own with all the intrigue of a dime detective novel.
I will, however, offer some advice. Those in the most need won’t take it, as their own journey here on earth may require them to live the life dramatic. They may not be able to see beyond the footlights of the stage, into a world that is a marvelous, sometimes scary place, where drama is in the living, not in the stories we tell ourselves about living.
Here’s the advice:
Go forth, drama queens. Take your final bow and exit stage left. Leave the spotlight and go out in the real world. Be yourself, stand up for what you believe in, not what others tell you to believe, focus on what is possible in your life rather than being trapped by the same old stale lines, explore who you are and what you can be, cherish every moment, and realize that a life of drama only robs you of living a well lived life, enjoying the one life we are certain that God gave us, one that should never be wasted with such silliness as drama that doesn’t have any resolution, and more important, has no value in the real world.
In the Emerald City, leaving by the stage door, exit stage right,
– Robb