Tag: drama

Musings, personal, Quotations, Team Development

Don’t you love farce?

Don’t you love a farce? My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want, sorry my dear
But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns
Don’t bother they’re here…

Stephen Sondheim

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If one reflects on the comings and goings at Westminster over the last 12 months it has been somewhat farcical. This is especially the case because some people have taken it so very seriously, they are so very important.

“There never were any parties. We obeyed all the rules. Honest guv. Pinkie swear.”

“I had a bit of slap and tickle with my aide/mistress and then went on I am a celeb, so people would like me. P.S. thanks for the £400k.”

“Let us give the rich and those {Jodrell} bankers a tax break while the nation starves waiting for the crumbs of caviar to trickle down from the high table…”

“Our brave air force will save us from ET and his UFOs.”

“Clap for carers but don’t give those greedy skiving bastards a pay rise. How dare they put us at risk after we managed the Covid fiasco so very well! All our chums got nice fat cat contracts for PPE.”

“Let us send all our jets to Ukraine…That is a good idea it will halt Russian aggression. {Sending combat aircraft is not a declaration of war in Boris’ mind.}”

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On a number of occasions I was asked to do team development courses because the “plebs” were complaining and not doing as they were told. It was obvious to me that in at least one case the root cause was the ridiculous, ill-planned and  demanding behaviour of senior staff. They were expecting sudden animal trials at a drop of a hat, when the specially bred line of rats needed weeks of preparation and breeding. Unrealistic demands cannot be met. When I suggested in this case that the Cambridge academics needed training much more than those in the animal house, my wise words were pooh-poohed. Egos are fragile and self-diagnosed omniscience is pandemic.

“Not us we are perfect. It is they; they are not sufficiently flexible to anticipate our whims, telepathically. If only they were better life would be fine. They are the problem!!”

The problem is that when people are caught up in the script of a dramatic farce, they are wholly unaware that they are in fact enacting a farce. This is what makes a farce, so farcical and so funny, the seriousness and commitment to the {pre-written} scripts of the protagonists in the farce. They cannot see beyond the opening and closing doors, along the farcical corridors. They cannot hear the “Benny Hill” music which is an accompaniment.

With perfect comedic timing, they say their lines, deadpan and fully bought into said reality {farce}.

The madness of the dream…

Musings, personal

Is, Ought and Hullabaloo

It is not uncommon for a hullabaloo to result when things do not adhere strictly to expectations. If the world differs from how it “ought” to be, how it “should” be people get all dramatic and there is suffering because how the world “is” does not conform to preconceptions. In fact people sometimes struggle to see and understand how the word “is” because the lenses of “should” and “ought” are so very thick that they prevent the clarity of actuality. People cannot see things how they are because they do not want to.

The shoe-horns of “ought” and “should” can struggle to get the foot of reality into the cobbler’s shoe of how the idealism, bias and prejudice have determined the world to be. There can be a disconnect between physical plane reality and an “idealistic” world view.

For example people are having trouble accepting that the “ideal” of Brexit in no way lives up to the hype with which it was miss-sold to the public. Brexit, in England, is almost a taboo word and Bregret is now being bandied about. Not all cunning “plans” work out. It was not even a plan, it was hyperbole, hot air, based on an faded jingoistic “Britannia Rules the Waves”, outdated illusion.

Now people have their blessed blue passports and can wait at immigration in the airport with the Bangladeshis and the Iranians.

I am picking up the “we are only making plans for Nigel {Alan} vibe again”.

Clearly people know best what is right for me and may even come to a consensual view of what that looks like. However, there is a lacking foundation stone. No bugger has asked me. The house is therefore unsteady.

It is so typical “they” get together and have a chat about how to “manage” others. Thank God for their omniscience. Where would we be without it?

I have no drama about my way of life. It is what it is. Others may deem that it did not “ought” to be like this. Why not?

In the news when someone dies it is often termed a “tragedy” especially if they were “well liked”, popular and below the age of 83. This drama over mundane reality is strange. Loads of people die in their fifties, so why are they “tragically” taken from us before their time?

There is a disconnect between “should”, “ought” and is. A hand wringing hullabaloo can result when someone dies of natural causes because the “should” have made it to their eighties. 

Why, to be an added burden on the health services?

When the time comes, it comes. Why all the drama?

People have a real knack of making a big hullabaloo when is differs from “should” and “ought”.

It is a form of suffering caused by wanting to have life on one’s own terms, terms dictated by the lower self. The universe must comply with our desires and expectations.

{It is not fair mummy.}

Unfortunately shit happens, life goes on and then you die. Life does not comply with our required terms and expectations.

Cause & Effect, Karma, Musings, Personal Development

Traps of Own Making – Soap Opera

The entertainment sector provides us with so-called “Soap Operas”. These pervade the societal consciousness to the extent that newspapers talk about what happens in them and provide “spoiler alerts” if there is to be a plot reveal. Soap opera “stars” can become part of our extended family. In these “operas” the protagonists get themselves into hot water, difficult situations, traps, and drama. They are like normal life but on steroids, amphetamines and in some cases hallucinogens. They are a mirror, a window on the trials and tribulations of modern mores, such as they may be.

In these the protagonists get themselves into all sorts of scrapes the extraction from which is never easy, there must be drama. Drama sells.

The common themes are sexual dalliance and sometimes coercion, deceit, manipulation, bullying, fraud, criminality, debts, revenge, one upmanship, lies, jealousy, money, resentment, babies, death, cancer, secrets, reveal of hidden secrets, family and property. Etc.

Many of these traps are made by the protagonists themselves. Knowingly they err for some short term perceived advantage or other and it comes back to bite them on the bum. The karmic boomerang is very evident in many soap opera plots.

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Their stuff can be found in real life on “The Jeremy Kyle Show” and in the newspaper columns of agony aunts like “Dear Deidre”. Sexual and therefore titillating problems are to be readily found for the salacious consumption of readership.

The simplest example of a trap of own making is the “expedient” lie. Faced with a difficult situation many tell a lie so as to avoid facing up to the reality of said situation. In an attempt to avoid; the trap, the hole, has started to be dug. When the subject to be avoided raises its head again, additional levels of lies, mistruth and spin are needed. The hole, the self-made trap, gets deeper. Soon the avoider is deep in a trap of their own making from which there is no easy escape. By seeking to avoid and deceive they have made the situation much worse. The trap deepens and there is now no escape. The trap then induces fear and paranoia about being found out. There is an additional layer of emotional angst associated with the trap, which many may carry with them to the grave. The drama causes dis-ease and suffering.

Occasionally the brown stuff hits the fan and the house of deceit comes crumbling down in full public view and the contents of the trap are revealed in all their glory for all to see.

This is a precis of many soap opera plot lines. One could say that life imitates “art”.

The classic metaphor is the plate spinning trick. Said spinner spins so many plates on poles. There are only so many plates that can be spun. If the spinner puts the straw on the camel’s back plate up not only one plate but many crash to the ground and break.

The problem with traps of own making is that people nearly always make the trap of own making worse by continuing to dig the hole. They cannot see beyond the trap. They just keep on digging. On occasion the hole then implodes upon them. The trap induces an egocentric myopia and the world starts to close in. People in the trap may imagine their behaviours justified right up until the jaws of the trap close and beyond. They may write come back articles for national newspapers seeking to re-affirm the very narrative which brought their downfall. They cannot let go of the trap which they have created for themselves. It lasts in proportion to the depth to which it was dug.

Nearly all traps of own making have a least a pinch of the flaked sea-salt of deceit in their seasoning. That salt may come from the tears of others.

The biggest commonality of traps of own making is the “getting away with it” mentality.

“I, the clever, the magnificent, am sufficiently skilful that I can wing it and get away with it…I do not have to pay for my dalliance. I am all powerful.”

Unfortunately, the universe is bigger than our egos and self-diagnosed omniscience…

The karmic boomerang is a genuine phenomenon of our current manifested universe. It is real unlike many of the things which humans say and are adamant about.

Musings, personal, Questions

Wrong Battles

Because of late I have been setting “traps” for cats and moles I have found it interesting re-reading Castaneda. People who are paranoid and suspicious might imagine that I am metaphorically talking about traps which I am setting for them. Nowt so queer as folk. I am really catching physical plane cats and physical plane moles.

There are a group of people for whom winning is important, and losing is something which they hate. Trump says he is a winner but many of his businesses have failed. He forgets these in his victory rhetoric.

There are those that really want to beat others, perhaps that makes them feel less insecure.

Those keen on winning have some metrics of success by which they might measure their victory. Rarely does it occur to them that their success metrics may not transfer to those who they are seeking to beat. They the imagined protagonists may be fighting entirely different battles. They may not be fighting at all, there can be a unilateral imaginary “war”.

For example if someone wants to gain one-up-man-ship against me in their own context I am quite likely to let them “win” because I do not assign any importance to the context in which they are so adamant about winning. It is their drama not mine.

If someone wants to be right and clever, who am I to disappoint them by proving otherwise?

Those keen on winning want to win quickly and soon, this means that although they may have a short term victory the long term consequences may differ. The sweet taste of victory may pale in the subsequent shit storm.

They know nothing of patience.

When I was a child of 10-11 my father bought me “Don’t Die in the Bundu” by Colonel Grainger of the Rhodesian army {SAS}. He had me read this. He himself had been an army officer in the Malayan insurgency. So, I learned theoretical bushcraft at an early age, in Zambia. I have practiced some of the techniques subsequently.

Although a “city slicker” on one level I have lived in the African Bundu and the Australian bush of the far outback.

The thing about traps is patience. Without it they are no good.

People convinced on their victory metrics and thereby blinded may walk straight into a trap of their own making. There is no need for me to set any traps.

Many people walk head first into traps of their own making, because they are fighting the wrong “battle”.

The correct battle, in normal society, is nearly always with self and not any external enemy.

Am I your enemy?