Dear Drama Observers, Years ago, I had a professor who possessed a quality I’ve always envied. He could convey in a few words what usually took me many to verbalize. He was a master of the pithy one-liner. For instance, I’ll never forget his philosophy of teaching: “If you state your ideas simply, illustrate them […]
Dear Drama Observers, I love college football. So, what better way to illustrate the point of today’s letter than by using a football analogy? Bear with me. Let’s say two teams, the Snakes and the Scorpions, have a long-standing, bitter rivalry—their competition dating back to the 1890’s. Their fan bases hate each other. Scorpion fans […]
Dear Drama Observers, Pam Beesly, Dunder Mifflin’s receptionist on The Office, once asked, “You know what they say about a car wreck where it’s so awful you can’t look away?” Her question captures how many of us are feeling about our current national car wreck. Our civic drama is at once compelling and confusing, captivating […]
Dear Drama Observers, Years ago, the speaker at a conference I was attending talked to us about the levels of certitude we ascribe to our beliefs. I should’ve taken better notes, but this was my take-away from that presentation. Picture, if you will, three concentric circles. The innermost circle contains those beliefs about which I […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ve seen lots of couples for marital counseling over the years and some come into my office more stuck than others. One very subjective measure of their stuck-ness is how I feel when I see them on my schedule. If they’re growing, changing, and making progress, I look forward to their session […]
Dear Drama Observers, Years ago, I had a friend who read a book which dogmatically asserted that all humans fall into one of four personality categories. Let’s just call the categories A, B, C, and D. Though I disagree entirely with the book’s premise, I have fewer problems with the categories than what my friend […]
Dear Drama Observers, There’s a point I want to make in this letter but first let me tell you two stories that illustrate the point I want to make. Story #1 In the summer of 1997, I went downtown early one morning and a man with a mask knocked me out, slit my throat, and […]
Dear Drama Observers, As I’ve said before, we use many terms to describe Drama People but “Drama People” is not usually one of them. You’re not likely to tell a friend, “That fellow is such a . . . such a . . . drama person. That just seems so inadequate, so namby-pamby, so not […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating. When our kids were little, my wife took them with her to grocery-shop one afternoon. She piled them into the car, drove to the store, got them out of the car, walked up and down the aisles, filled the cart, explained a million […]
Dear Drama Observers, I’d like to say a few things about the tension between winning and principles… but first let me tell you a story. As Larry King once said before marrying his seventh wife, I’ll try to keep this short. My dad dropped me off at college one Sunday night to begin my freshman […]