The Addiction to Drama
“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” – Marcus Aurelius
Not Theater Plays, Internets drama.
4. any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results
I sometime ask myself , what would someone gain from it, be either interacting with it or creating it. Is it followers? Likes? Shares? Money? All of them. It attracts people.1 It generates clout. But it also generates something else…
"Drama is the path to the dark side. Drama leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - Not Yoda
The problem is that "drama” is a constant negative. There’s no positive drama. It rails people up. It generates feelings, an urge to react. It makes you angry.2
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
“How dare they change it!” “Why would they do that?” “Look how terrible it is!”
Feeding the Inner Beast
In the movie The Fifth Element there’s a giant sphere in space, they call it the “Great Evil”. The military decides to shoot some nuclear missiles to end it, and guess what, it grows, they made it bigger. Why? Because Evil likes evil.
In the Ghostbusters 2 movie there’s a slime that reacts out of people’s anger. Same principle, the more anger thrown at it the more it reacts and grows.
Last one, I promise, maybe.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you see how Harry is always in a state of anger, this is because he has a connection to Voldemort and this connection exposes him to his evil, it's negativity. The same happens in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1) with the pendant he's always carrying around. Their constant exposure to it makes them irritable and angry to the point internal conflict happens.
And don’t let me start on poor Frodo, you had it easy Harry. Wait, did Rowling just ripoff Tolkien? Anyways, moving on…
The point is that when we expose ourselves to constant negativity we become negativity too.3
This is why, imo, it's better to stay away from “drama” content as much as possible.
Fighting the Monster
So, what then? What can be done? How can we improve the situation?
In 1998 a movie called Merlin was televised and in this movie Merlin defeated the main villain (Mab) in a very peculiar way:
"No, Mab, we're just going to forget you.” - Merlin
Let. It. Go. Do not interact with it. Do not consume it. If big Corpo is doing "bad" movies, don't watch them. If they are doing "terrible" comics, don't read them. But also, you have to stop talking about them, even to criticize it. You have to stay away as much from such content as possible.4
Time to concentrate on the positive. If you see yourself flooded with negative content on twitter, unfollow. On YouTube, unsub. You get the gist. Helping others (one way or another) it’s better than going on a criticizing spree.
Now, a like and a thumb up goes a long way. Talk about how good is something, being a book, a comic, a movie, etc. Share positive thoughts. “Hey, that’s cool.” “Really neat.” “Well done!” Support those who are producing good positive content. Comics, for example, can not only be entertaining but also present morals in their stories. Things we can relate from in our every day life or teach us. They also have characters we could aspire to be like.
There are many content creators out there, but we must look them up and support them, otherwise nothing good will come out. I want you to consider the following:
The Ravens Loft, Mrs. H, Fr. Patrick Retter, The Perpetually Distracted Paula Richey, and Raven.
There are others, but those are a good place to start.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. Thanks for reading.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/vitality/201809/why-we-consume-negative-news
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/201909/how-negative-news-distorts-our-thinking
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/201909/how-negative-news-distorts-our-thinking
Sometimes evil has you in it's grasp and there is no recourse but to fight or be consumed.
The questions is does the good fight exist and can you fight and leave unscathed?