I think that everyone, literally everyone, from the smallest of fungal spores gently drifting through the air, to the most morbidly engorged of American schoolchild making their way through a cargo container full of oily chicken, will agree with me when I say that the word drama has lost its quality over the years.
I maintain that drama, in its tradition, is very good. In fact I have very little respect for people who cannot perform this dying art. Today, drama is a very toxic idea, it is to simply be loud and obnoxious and angry and horrible. Drama is little more than a word which describes deeply perverse outlets of abuse. A way in which to reinforce soft power hierarchies by being an insufferable and yet oddly sinister crybaby.
Drama in its modern social phenomenological sense is in many ways a byproduct of removing public hangings. It makes people take liberties with things like loudness and obnoxiousness. This isn’t to say that I want to bring back public hangings of course, but I do think there should be some sort of self defense clause with regards to people who, in many situations, invite themselves to get punched in the face.
I don’t like the way in which we’ve decided to valorise psychological violence and the infliction of emotional trauma, we should try to balance things more so you get a little bit of both instead of excess in one and scarcity of the other. It’s good for the soul.
Now real drama, as practiced by the olden and wise, was far more nuanced and subtle. Real drama is to captivate, it’s a sword, not a sledgehammer. It is the emotional art of being sublime. Proper dramatics make things memorable, timeless, infinite, it casts a kind of light on the essence of a moment. It is not when people act like sexually opportunistic monsters on twitter. And we should learn to embrace this.
The biggest part of drama in my opinion is to learn how to phrase yourself. One thing that stupid people do when they argue is to rely on always in their vocabulary. “Why do you always ignore what I say?” or “Why do you always blame others for your problems?” It makes them seem dishonest. Because they are.
Rather, you should be more dramatic, and say something like “Why do you think you can deceive me with your forked tongues and your miserable facades?! Who are you to make such worlds, if not the almighty?! Your hubris shall be the end of you!”
See? That’s how you win an argument. That’s how you give the other person something to think about. It is also a fun way to express yourself in general. “Turn off that lamp! You, who would cast me into the sleepless eternity like an aimless revenant! AN AIMLESS REVENANT!” That’s far better than some dull and meaningless remark like “Turn out the lights, I’m trying to sleep.”
All I’m saying is that I seem to be the only person out there who actually know what words are for, and it’s to say them. Everyone always gets angry and also very repetitive with me when I use good and perfectly interesting words. They always ask some stupid question like “Why do you use so many words?” or “Why don’t you just talk like a normal person?” But permit me to retort with my own line of inquiry, you who interrogate with such prejudice and entitlement: “If being normal was so good, then how come their deaths are announced in numbers rather than names?”
“300 normal people died in plane crash.”
Sure, like I want to be one of those.
