Drama Trauma

 

Life goes on and we do our daily task, but something has changed. The sun still rises in the same spot. The house still has that squeaky door. Your neighbor still parks in front of your house. There is still a line to check out at the grocery. That bump on your arm might be getting redder or larger or not and you can’t decide whether to go to the doctor or not. The clothes still need washing. The dog needs to go for a walk. The daily humdrum moves on, but…

It seems everything…EVERYTHING…needs to be a drama.

So much went past our notice before global social interaction. A war could happen on the other side of the world and unless it involved some of our troops, no one heard about it.

People were starving and no one seems to know it. Ships would sink and no one cared. Birds would die, mountains erupted, cars wrecked, banks robbed, children got lost, domestic violence happened, businesses opened and closed, people married, babies born, parties happened, bones discovered, races won, cats adopted, houses sold, fashions changed, songs sung, hair cut, food cooked, hearts broken, snow fell, people died and if you didn’t receive a phone call or a notice in a letter…you didn’t know it.

The digital world brought us global communications and immediate response. It brought us information. It brought us images. It brought us opinions and thus, drama.

Drama is an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances. Drama is what we go to the theater to watch. Drama is what makes a conversation with our neighbor interesting. Drama, if presented correctly, can bring us together.

All families have dramas. Dramas make our memories. We tend to help our friends dramas until they become overwhelming.

The time of a person in a suit sat behind a desk who reads off a piece of paper to a camera connected to American households in a dry and concise manner is over. What was told to the families eating their dinner was what was sent to the station by the established news gathering organizations, normally AP or UPI, and then trimmed down by a local editor for available airtime. That was our connection with the world around us.

Now, everything is drama.

With everyone having a video camera and a microphone, snippets of events can be captured and delivered throughout the world by satellite. No one has investigated the cause of the images seen or the description in the dialogue. As every viewer adds opinions, the video will become so poplar (now called viral) and the ‘established’ new media will present it as part of our culture, giving it some viability.

Break the point of you pencil? Get out your camera and make a pod posting. Tell of the frustration of having to stop scribbling on paper to either get another pencil or sharpen the broken one. Tell the viewing public of your concern of getting lead poisoning or a possible splinter from the break. Complain about the quality of the pencils, it’s construction and manufacturer.

Just as we lust after watching attractive rich people live a lifestyle we can only wish for with a lottery ticket, we wallow in the drama. We snoop on our neighbors to conjecture on their drama. Movies, books, sports and news are full of drama. We look on with fascination too riveting to turn away.

I (personally) have a trauma with all the drama. If everything that has been ignored for years has become front-page news. If every decision by our elected officials becomes a tizzy fit worse than the Thanksgiving dinner table, then we don’t move. If every move is dissected and diagnosis with every possible agenda’s point-of-view refuted, can there be a comprehensive agreement?

I will continue to listen to the politics. I will listen to the various arguments, beliefs and thoughts.

Perhaps this is the new world order?