The Allure of Drama

Have any of you ever heard of Kimkins?  I never really did, to be honest.  I've known about low carb dieting for a long time, but I never even gave it a chance until last spring.  Until then, I was completely unaware of any of the goings-on in the LC world.  So somehow, by chance, I found myself reading about Kimkins for the very first time this weekend.  I stayed up way later than I should have last night reading about it, because it was just so fascinating.  Like a terrifying novel, only it's completely real.  All the people harmed in this story really got harmed.

It amazes me how interesting drama is.  I purposefully go out of my way to avoid drama in my personal life, and yet when I run across a story about wrong doings, mysterious happenings, and people getting lied to and hurt, I can't help wanting to stop and read everything I can about it.  I don't even read dramatic books or watch dramatic movies, and yet there I was last night, knee deep in 4-5 year old blogs, trying to read all the drama I could about this case.

For some reason, I think humans evolved to love drama.  You see it everywhere you go.  I dare you to turn on your television and try to find a show that isn't dramatic.  I've even seen shows where they try to make fishing or antiquing as dramatic as possible!  I don't know about you, but the last time I checked, the reason most people go fishing or antiquing is because it relaxes them.

There are people in my life that I know to be truly drama-addicted.  My sister, for instance, seems to be constantly in a bad situation.  She complains bitterly about how hard her life is, but she never stops to think about why she's in the place she's in.  If she did, she'd realize that almost every single bad thing in her life is self-inflicted.  I doubt she knows this is going on, but on some level, she's creating drama in her life because she's addicted to it.

Even though I know it's bad for me, I can't always stop myself from following certain real-life novels.  I find myself  attracted the whole Carbsane drama lately.  In certain ways, it reminds me a lot of Kimkins.  The situations are totally different (Kimkins was advocating extremely low calorie/low carb/low fat diets, where as Carbsane is going around bashing just about every LC/Paleo/Primal person on the internet), but the personalities of Heidi (Kimkins) and Evelyn (Carbsane) ....  they seem eerily similar.  Manipulative, secretive, uncaring about damage they're doing to the people who trust them, narcissistic, and very hateful to anyone who doesn't agree with them.

It's really sad to me that there's drama like this out in the world.  That hateful, dramatic people like Heidi and Evelyn can gather a following of trusting people who just don't question their tactics.  And even more sad is the fact that I can't peel my eyes away from the ensuing train wreck.  I find myself rooting for the "bad guys" to get caught and all the juicy details of their lies to be uncovered.  The world needs justice!

Maybe it does, but I don't think I want to be a part of that side of it.  I'm going to try letting go of the drama-filled blogs and focus more on being positive and uplifting in my own.  As it turns out, Gandhi didn't say this next quote despite the fact that everyone attributes it to him, but it's still a beautiful belief to live by:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

And I plan to.