So today as I walked through the kitchen to get a garbage bag because I was cleaning my room (floor = clean now), I heard like three seconds of whatever talk radio show my dad had on. No idea what the show was actually about, but the snippit I heard was this guy saying, "You bring up an interesting point... is drama part of the human condition? Do we seek drama?"
And now, of course, I'm wondering... is it part of the human condition? Do we, in spite of all our insisting that we "hate" drama, actually seek it out?
Maybe. Yes and no, I think. I mean, there must be a reason for television shows like The Hills and Gossip Girl. They have an audience. And audience of people who, whether they admit to it or not, do to some extent, like drama. We all know that some people don't just like drama, but they thrive on it. They were the girls in jr. high (and beyond that) dated a new guy every week and always had brutally public breakups, girls found crying on the bathroom floor every other day over something her so-called best friend did. The guys and girls whose lives are everyone's business, and not because people pry, but because they make it everyone's business. Now, I'm not talking about that girl who somehow gets caught up in a web of drama and wakes up one morning like, how did that happen? I'm not even talking about the people we always hear gossip about. I'm talking about the people who spread the gossip. People who love to be the center of attention, who talk about themselves to whoever will listen, who give their opinion on everything and everyone, and who are always the first to hear the latest news. These are the SPOTLIGHT HOGGERS, the real GOSSIP GIRLS (even if they're guys) of our lives.
I'm not talking about them.
I'm talking about the rest of us, going about our day-to-day, only telling our closest friends of our personal dramas, not spreading gossip to everyone we meet. Do we really seek drama? Is it just part of our nature?
I have a friend who's fond of saying she "hates" drama. And I am fond of quickly agreeing with her. But looking at it... I don't really hate drama, and I doubt she really does either. If we all hated it as much as we say we do, there wouldn't be any of it, because we wouldn't keep it going so strongly.
I think secretly, everyone likes a little drama. We need it to spice up our otherwise boring lives. Because, let's face it - nobody's life is as busy/exciting/glamorous as we think or pretend it is. I'm not saying I love drama, or that anyone else does either. It makes life complicated and messy and way more ugly than it needs to be most the time. But we still like it, still keep it going.
And, let's face it, sometimes drama is good. Sometimes it's needed. If not for drama, we would never have the guts to do a lot of really important things. We wouldn't let our friends know when they've hurt us, we'd just keep that hurt to ourselves and let it get way too bottled up. We wouldn't stand up for ourselves and risk rocking the boat when we know nobody's going to stand with us. We wouldn't talk openly about sensitive issues with our friends, or let them know when we think they've passed the line/messed up/whatever. We wouldn't confront anything or anyone. And we wouldn't put our lives, or even parts of them, on paper for the world to read.
I'm saying it now: yes, drama is part of the human condition. Yes, we seek it out. And none of us hate it as much as we say.
Any comments?
PS. CDs? Anybody?