Oh, the drama…

“Imagine there’s no heaven drama. It’s easy if you try…”

John Lennon, with a twist. Well, let me say it’s a good thing for everyone that I am singing in print and you can’t actually hear me.

Would you agree the collective is addicted to drama? There is study after study about the attention span of most carbon units, and it’s now like…3 seconds. Okay, a bit of an exaggeration on the time span but what’s going to happen when the drama of The Tool, is gone?

What will all those journalists / pundits do to fill the endless hour-long news programs, now fully dedicated to the latest moronic stunt The Tool perpetrates each passing hour? This constant barrage of stories pelting us like a hailstorm. The ratings will never be the same.

Those shaking their heads at this very thought, not willing to believe we could possibly be guilty of drama addiction, secretly fear it’s true. We have become a short-attention span, television-craving bunch of drama addicts! There are those who claim to be ready for the quiet and they may be, but let me share how I think this is going to go.

When I retired in my fifties from a long career in Information Technology, I was ready. Or, so I thought. I worked my way up from network engineering to CIO. The IT industry was still fledgling. It was fast-paced, cutting-edge, and everyone wanted perfect networks, in a time when the technology to deliver that perfection was far from available or cost feasible. Needless to say, I was fried. A crispy critter. I wanted to have one single day without a call, without an emergency, a weekend, a holiday without working. I yearned for quiet. So, I retired.

The first week was weird. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The second week, I read and slept. The third week, I realized I didn’t have a single friend because I had worked so much. The fourth week, I was looking for a job. Bored to tears by the very quiet I had given up a career to achieve.

I fear it will be the same for much of our population. The first few months will be the much-needed break. And for some, the reset will stick. Then there will be a period of bliss and what we used to consider normalcy. Maybe the pandemic will be controllable, and we reconnect with friends. What then? What new shiny thing will draw us back into the drama fold?

What’s scary is, look at what we just survived? To achieve the fix to our addiction, for which we are by now, in serious withdrawal, what creature or event will have to occur to resurrect the drama? I shudder to think…