Via Basel: Dramas Big and Small

The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh

Like many 8-year-olds, my granddaughter Sophie tends to exaggerate her emotions, especially when she fails to get what she wants. It is expressed verbally, in facial expressions, and through body language. I jokingly suggest she would excel in drama plays or movies, as she is a “drama queen.” As children mature, we expect them to grow out of that stage and respond in a more realistic and proportionate way to events or stimuli. After all, that should be the most effective and efficient way to deal with problems while conserving our limited energy. From an evolutionary standpoint, quick, rational decisions (fight or flight) were far more helpful for survival than intense emotional reactions.

According to Webster’s dictionary, drama is mainly about intense conflict and emotion. It serves a useful purpose on stage or in movies to highlight, entertain, and attract viewers. The early Greeks understood and perfected that art, and in some ways, it may have contributed to human development and culture. In real life, however, it is not as useful.

There is a lot of discussion these days about reality and truth. If they are not identical, they at least converge and overlap. They may not be easy to discern, especially when we are distracted or emotional. Since none of us is perfect in that regard, we each develop different versions of reality. That, however, does not make all these versions equal. Some are closer to the ultimate truth or reality than others. This is not just a spiritual or philosophical ideal but an everyday practical one. Being able to properly identify, diagnose, and understand an issue—whether social, economic, mental, or physical—is essential to treating, reducing, or eliminating its effects. A quick evaluation of our society today reveals the prevalence of exaggeration and drama in many areas, not to mention outright intentional disinformation.

Examples of “drama” are abundant in our private lives and relationships, causing significant suffering and disruption in families and friendships. Heated arguments and exaggerated resentments rarely lead to conflict resolution or peace between participants; instead, they prolong the misery of discontent and unease. The same is true on a larger scale across groups, communities, and nations. Hyperbole, hollow rhetoric, exaggerated threats, and emotional outbursts from leaders often lead to outcomes unfavorable to the perpetrator, along with significant death and destruction affecting many—including innocent people not directly involved in the conflict. These manufactured “dramas” are even more toxic at that level, as their effects cause suffering on a massive scale.

It is time to leave drama to the realm of the arts—novels, theater, and film—and out of our daily personal and communal lives. We can still write our scripts, tell our stories, and act them out in real life, each of us as the lead character in our own story. Taking agency in the real world means taking responsibility not only for our own actions but also for how we respond to situations beyond our control. This can be skillfully accomplished by pausing, reflecting, and choosing a thoughtful response on our own timetable, aligned with our values, morals, and ethics.

Most of us are not born with this innate ability, but we can develop that “muscle” of wisdom through awareness and daily practice. For more on this, I suggest reading my past columns or picking up a good book. As an example, I love this quote from Love Your Enemies by Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman:

Good leaders-wise kings and queens-have a responsibility to rule well, to do what is right and best for all their people. Frequently, we entertain secret fantasies about being powerful and think we are working hard to succeed. But actually we fear power and the responsibility it carries. One of the most discomforting delusions is that we have no power and therefore what we do, say and think does not really matter. But we need to overcome this delusion: it’s not true, we have agency, and accept responsibility for our contribution to our own and other’s lives. We need to develop a deeper kind of stable self-confidence that is free of the self-inflation and self-promotion that arise out of our basic feeling of insecurity (Page 144)

Basel Al-Aswad, father of EIL founder Christopher Al-Aswad, is a yogi trapped in an Orthopedic Surgeon’s body. His loves in life include reading, writing, hiking, enjoying nature, meditation, and spending time with his large Iraqi family; now, semi-retired, he is exploring new avenues in medicine, education, public speaking, teaching, and social engagement.