Regaining Our Sense of Community in Bon Air Amidst the Drama

I do not know about you . . . and maybe some will comment back, but the drama is tiring me out.  I have been quite interested in understanding drama for about 20 years.   I have what I call an academic interest in the subject, but right now everything going on is tiring me out and I am just wondering how we can move on to being a community again?

The best way to picture drama is that it is a triangle of at least three players.

 In drama there is an interaction where there is a persecutor who is accused of being hurtful, injurious, offense or making someone have some emotional discomfort.   There is the victim who is the one who claims to be hurt.  Then there is a rescuer trying to be protective.   However, in the interaction the roles change because

• The victim can become the rescuer or the persecutor 
• The persecutor can become the victim or the victim
• The rescuer can become the victim or persecutor

There are two aspects to drama that make it tough to figure out: 

1. There is always more to the story and
2. There is always embellishment added for effect.  

Anyway, my current, favorite triangle that that you might be able appreciate is the average political campaign.  Where politicians attack their opponents while they rescue you, the victim also called the average voter.  Without taking sides, Amy McGrath and Mitch McConnell have one going on right now purely in their commercials.   They are calling each other your persecutor while making themselves out to be your rescuer.  

Anger is viral and social media has been a means its of transmission. 

Drama is an emotional matter.  Anger is the driver of it. Someone is angry at someone for something and they come into the triangle as the hurt victim, the righteous rescuer or the abusive persecutor.  

Anger is an impulsive emotion.  It is driven by adrenaline.  Angry people flush with adrenaline talk louder, faster, and are more likely going to do things they regret if they have a conscience. Anger is also contagious where people can empathize with someone else's anger or be annoyed by the negative vibes.  Anger is viral and I would say social media has been one its means of transmission in this world. 

Anyway, the most technical and complete book on drama is Stephen B Karpman,(2014)  A Game Free Life. 

Karpman created the above triangle and book gets pretty detailed but you are into such reading, it is very instructive, and it is available on Amazon (click here to see more).

The reason I am mentioning the book is that as a society we are now at what Karpman calls "Maximum Drama."   It takes four conditions:

1. Increase the number of people
2. Increase the distance and geography involved
3. Increase the stakes and danger involved and,
4. Increase the insolvability for everyone involved. (p50) 

At this time:

• For the past several nights Louisville and other major cities across the United States are instituting emergency curfews because "peaceful demonstrations" have escalated into riots. 
• People are blaming law enforcement of being aggressors when they are throwing things first at the police and violating the curfews. 
• The original cause was supposed to be justice, but it escalated into property destruction
• No one is going to say anything that is going to prove anything to anyone and people are only going to say things that annoy and offend each other.   

Do I have An Answer for the Drama?  No. But...

A minister told me that when you have a conflict, if you can maintain your composure for about a week the problem will subside.  The current drama as it exists will subside as the emotion goes down.

Maintaining your composure means staying calm and watching your tongue and getting your mind distracted with other things.  It takes a lot of strength and focus to maintain that self control that is composure.  We have to engage in self-care that rejuvenates us and gives us rest from the stresses.

We also have to move our minds to what else matters in our lives that we can do something about, which means to the first half of my headline: regaining our sense of community.  Covid19 and now the current set of riots has had us spending our attention and energy on those matters.

There are things around our neighborhood that need our attention and focus.  I am hoping that the Highgate Springs Neighborhood Association can get out and restore the magnificent garden at Furman and Taylorsville Rd.  I am hoping that the Bon Air Neighborhood Association can get back on track with the Arts Development strategy in some form or fashion.  I hope that you can get out and clean up around your street, and if we can get Operation Brightside rescheduled you will come out and be part of it.

Lastly, I hope that you would consider joining one of the neighborhood associations and focus on making the Bon Air Neighborhood one of the places to be.

I am pretty sure that we do not all agree on everything, but I believe that the Bon Air Neighborhood is a diverse neighborhood where people are accepting of each other.  I would like to think that we have strength in our diversity and together we can use the positive energy and opportunity to make this place even more of a great place to live.