more dramas

I spent Saturday hanging out with Johnnie Moore during his visit to Sydney and going off on lots of tangents. Our conversations seem to consist of multiple tangents from which we eventually return to our original topic. Anyways, one topic that came up was “mindfulness”. In fact it’s been coming up a lot recently (e.g the slow community podcast with Nancy). Here are some reasons why:

• Life is getting faster & more complicated. If we don’t manage ourselves we will get washed away.
• We have more autonomy – no one else (e.g. a government, a paternal corporate) is going to manage our lives for us. And as our lives get more complicated and more unique, others are less able to provide us with reliable advice.
• Mindfulness & self-restraint have been part of our religious traditions. As we have lost our dependence on religion so we have lost some of the resources that religion provided.

So in discussing drama triangles, I see them as part of a personal project around mindfulness and self-understanding. James R comments that they are negative – which can be true if they are used in an accusatory way: “You are a rescuer”; “You are a victim”. I see them more as tools to aid self-awareness (as KT notes): “What games am I involved in here and do I really want to play them?”

There’s something existential - recognising that you have a choice and more freedom than is immediately apparent.