Posted on by Tenneson Woolf

A Wee Commentary (Rant) on The Pervasive Pattern of Inflated and Invasive Drama

I’m not sure what it is these days.
My body has changed.
My brain too.
My heart too.

I don’t seem to have
the same capacity
to participate in the drama
of it all.

“It all” seems to be mainstream anything.
TV shows, news reports,
speculation over this and that,
and amped fears steering this way and that way.

I’ve become a person
that likes to watch the game with the sound off,
relieving me of the commentary
that so often imposes these days.

My kids are teasing me, kind of.
They want me to watch The Bachelorette with them.
I will, because I’m a Dad
that will join them in what interests them.

But my body resists something there.
I think it is the manufactured drama
so inherent in such genre of TV and uber editing.
I don’t seek to be numbed nor titillated in that way.

There is plenty of rich complexity in the naturalness of human life.
I seek to participate.
And to integrate.
I don’t seek to be hooked in the manufacturing.


6 Replies to “A Wee Commentary (Rant) on The Pervasive Pattern of Inflated and Invasive Drama”

  1. I’m with you on being turned off by the Bachelorette and other prime time viewing. I’m curious, though, whether it’s maybe not about manufactured drama. Maybe your resistance – my own! – is to our creeping cultural addiction to living vicariously through the television instead of having and exploring a more direct and personal experience of the world.

    Reply

  2. Hmmm…a thoughtful post which resonated so deeply this morning. I’m noticing how much the silence of just being in the moment nurtures me. This summer we are taking ‘jaunts’ rather than holidays…small, pleasurable journeys of discovery. We are grounded in our daily life, it’s rhythms and surprises.

    Reply

  3. “There is plenty of rich complexity in the naturalness of human life.”

    I’m turning off and deleting much. I’m checking the headline, but declining the deep dive. So much speculation. It feels like time spent taking in the news/drama/story-of-the-day steals time I could be spending with the labyrinth or the birds or the mountains or just sitting on my patio feeling the breeze and breathing in the day.

    Reply

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