Drama Magnet?

I've been thinking a lot about drama lately. I don't think of myself as an overly dramatic person. I think of myself as dramatic in the sense of vivid, sometimes flashy, intense... but not in the sense of Drama followed by Queen. However, I seem to mysteriously find myself embroiled in drama situations with some frequency. I find this aspect of my life stressful and unpleasant. I really do enjoy a fairly quiet existance. I am content with calm.

I know some people who manufacture drama. These people are uncomfortable with calm, uneasy in silence, and view an even keel with suspicion bordering on hostility. They have a tendency to shake the boat, just to find their comfort zone in the chaos. I'm not one of those people. I want things calm, I seek to stabilize chaotic situations so I can return to a placid existance where I'm comfortable.

Does that make me not a drama generator, but instead a drama magnet? How does it work exactly? Do I seek out drama generators in order to stimulate myself? Do drama generators seek me out because I'm calming? Is this a pattern that will repeat itself throughout my life, causing me to consistantly deal with chaos stressors of what seem to be my choosing?

I know I am drawn to people who, if not crazy, are loosely hinged. In some ways, those friendships are enjoyable to me because as drama generators, they provide stimulation in the form of entertainment that is "drama that's not mine". Drama that's not mine is fun. Drama that is mine is not fun. Am I just playing with fire when I have those people in my life?

I sat and mulled this over a bit. Who *are* the people who cause the most disturbing drama in my life? Interestingly, they are the people who I don't expect it from. When you meet a high drama person, you expect drama, you're prepared for drama, and you can manage it when it comes down the pike. They aren't doing anything you don't expect from them, so I never let it get to my center, to rock my stability. (for long, anyway)

No, it's the people who I would never expect it from, the people who I feel are more like myself, people who seek calm and seek stability. Those people have drama elements in their life that reach over and rock mine. Are they drama magnets too? Are they powerless to keep themselves from doing a swan dive into the vortex, knowing better, telling themselves they aren't even doing it, and yet going forward with the siren's song in their ears?

In conversations with these people, they are so reasonable. No, of course I won't get involved in that. Yes, I know how damaging that is. Yes, I remember when that happened before with X Drama Generator. It's ok, I will be alright. No, I won't get you involved, of *course* I can keep you out of it. And finally, the last one... No, I won't let this affect our friendship, I can keep these two relationships seperate.

It's that last one that's the kicker. When you have a drama generator in your life, you meet the other drama magnets, the other emotional gimps in their life. You may get out, but they may not. I like the drama gimps. They're my kind of people. I like being around calm, centered people. I'm entertained by drama generators, but it's not a lifestyle. (I can quit anytime, I can!) When a sitation becomes too much, when gimping becomes a lifestyle and I get tired of being the punching bag, I get out. The other gimps are left.

I hate leaving a man behind. I may not be a monument to justice, but I am loyal and I fight for the underdog as a matter of course. Maybe I even seek out drama generators simply because I'm really more interested in the people they surround themselves with than I am the DG themselves. It's easy to leave the drama behind, but the gimps have my heart.

What to do about that? I'm faced again in my life, from several sides, the cusp of the inevitable consequences of being in these situations. Do I bail, leaving the ones I care about, whose company I enjoy and whom I find value in by themselves, just to get free of the drama generators that disturb my life to the point of unacceptability? Or, do I get back involved, hoping that the people I do truly care about can find a way out of the mire to maintain the connection we have?

It brings about a final question, one I tend to shy away from but must finally face. Who are these people without the drama generator they're connected to? If not their current DG, will it be *someone*? If the gimps got together and dumped the DG's, would we live a long life of eternal boredom? If a person is wired to seek out a DG, or has been trained to do such by circumstance, can they ever truly be happy, can they ever really appreciate a relationship/friendship with someone who isn't pure drama?

In What the *Bleep* there is discussion about emotional addiction. The biology of addiction works the same no matter what chemical is effecting the cells. Since emotions are chemicals, people can easy have addictions to particular emotions, and will organize their lives in such a manner to seek out the fulfillment of that addiction. Are gimps addicts? Do they seek out the DG in order to get their fix, their emotional addiction to a certain type of stress that has normalized in their system to the point where the body/mind thinks it needs it in order to be happy? From what I've seen, I am beginning to fear the answer to that question is one that will leave me in constant frustration if I continue to seek out gimp types as close friends and particularly if I seek them out for romantic relationships.

I have this idea that given an opportunity to be around someone who is interesting, vivid, (dramatic!) and who contains a strong personality, but who is actually stable emotionally, anyone who is drawn towards powerful personalities would think that was a great deal, and make that choice. But yet, it's not worked out that way so far.

In The Matrix, there is a discussion about a utopian artificial reality that everyone kept trying to wake up from. Years of dominatrix work, and some amount of time in corporate America has shown me that people like abuse. They think it's normal. Catholic guilt? Is our system so wired to teach people that misery is rewarded with heaven, (and therefore happiness on earth is bound to be punished somehow) that seeking a life of contentment is bound to cause crippling anxiety, feelings of doing something wrong, or not quite living right?

We are all seeking the thing, the magic pill, that's going to cause happiness. Marry the right person, get the right job, have the right house, make the right amount of money, live the right life... if the right combination is found, then happiness will be the natural consequence. But, is it possible that as a culture, we can't even recognize happiness when we have it? If we are all emotional punching bags, and can only find contentment in some form of recognizable and familier pain, is happiness ever truly even a possibility? Is happiness pain?

The Ruiz's say we make our own Hell on earth by engaging in the drama of others. Buddhists take this idea further by putting a label on the consequences of staying in a rut of bad behavior. Karma has become a word integrated into American conciousness, yet there is little talk of changing it. Have we given up on the notion that we can change ourselves, make different choices, recognize the damage we've done in our lives and others by our choices and make different ones in the future?

I hope not, for myself and for the other gimps struggling to find happiness that's not at our own expense.

Happy Samhain!

I've been waiting for Samhain. It's my favorite pagan holiday, tho I rarely admit that I love this one more than Beltane. Interestingly, my two favorite holidays are the opposites of each other. The joy of this holiday is the breaking point. There are points in timelines that are where you just need to move on. Lammas is that great time when you appreciate what you've accomplished, and you forgive yourself for not being as far along by the time of summer as you expected. Samhain is like the bad ass version of that theory. November 10th isMartini in the Latvian pagan calendar. It's the time to put finish putting up for winter. Done with preserving food, chopping the wood, fall butchering, and time to prepare to hunker down, to see how you did.

Samhain is the time to step away from the things you carry with you, and move into the time when all of your preparations for the year come to fruition. I really like the idea of this as the beginning of the new year. All the time before that is gone, immaterial in the face of survival. All of your energy now is devoted to the new winter coming up. The winter struggle is not the end of the year where at the end of it is spring. Instead, it is the beginning of the year, where you start with what you've got, and at the end of the struggle is the chance to learn from your inadequate prepartion and do better at the end of the year. Start with the struggle, and take those lessons into the easy seasons.

It's good to remember that at the beginning, everything is hard. It's also good to remember to let go the things that are dragging you down before the going gets rough. What baggage am I carrying? I've been waiting for this holiday with both anticipation and dread. Like Lent, this is an important time to cull the unnecessary drama, material goods, unhealthy habits, and not only get out of those ruts, but plant the seeds for a healthier future. Winter is a good time for meditation. Samhain is a great time to identify what it's time to say goodbye to. Why is it so hard to say goodbye to the things that seem to be the most damaging? My list extensive, as I sit and contemplate.

Yet, it's shorter than last year, and certainly less drama filled. Perhaps the lessons of Samhain and the lean months leading up to the ritualistic sacrifice of Lent are taking hold. It's only been in recent years that I have put that effort back into the lessons the holidays bring. Lent was a holiday I celebrated in my childhood, but had only begun to see the serious helpful benefits of the tradition in the last few years. In fact, holidays have begun to fascinate me with their opportunities for ritualistic ways to address different universal aspects of living the human condition. The major (especially pagan) holidays reflect the thoughts people have in an almost universal way based on how nature is acting around them. Samhain reflects the death of the life, the beginning of the ice time. We naturally think about other things that are ending. With endings, thoughts turn naturally to beginnings. After all, what is an end except an opportunity for some other beginning? Beltane, the blossoming of the pregnancy of Winter, the time where all energy reserves are concentrated on cultivating the hidden life of the world. An explosion comes at the end of that slow time, showing us the miracle and joy of new life.

Isn't it wonderful how we can appreciate new life so much more intensely after being denied it's expression for a few months. Without winter's pregnant time, new life comes as no wonder and no surprised delight. We know that from the decadent late summer indulgences of plenty. In the summer, it seems things will grow forever. We never appreciate what is always there, can always be counted on... only denial can remind us to appreciate what fortune there is in happiness.

Happy Samhain, and enjoy the upcoming scarcity as it tempers your summer fat into the satisfaction of survival once again.