The Opinionist

Physicists will have us believe that energy is the great driving force behind the universe, that all systems work because the energy put in must necessarily equal the energy that comes out. This is incorrect. In actual fact, the universe is powered by drama.

Any situation requires an element of drama in order to obtain the desired outcome. Going for a drink with friends requires first spending 20 minutes searching for the left shoe and a pause halfway there to check for keys and to remember if the oven was turned off. These are mild dramas for a relatively low impact event.

A high impact event, such as a death in the family, requires crying and grief and flapping in order to keep the system moving forward. The funeral is the apex of this system, propelling out the other end humans brimming with a sense of their own mortality, riding high on the emotion of the event, and motivated to live better, more full lives for their remaining time here. This is how the greater system of humanity keeps rolling onwards, using the drama of those leaving to drive forward those remaining.

And thusly I present to you the universal Laws of Dramadynamics.

• The zeroth law of dramadynamics states that drama is usually measured in flaps and crises. 1 drama = N crisis where N > 1, equally, 1 crisis = N flaps where N > 1.

• The first law of dramadynamics states that drama cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed into a different form of problem that can probably be dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

• The second law of dramadynamics says that in a single system left unattended drama will dissipate, but on a macroscopic level drama can only ever increase.

• The third law of dramadynamics discusses the possibility of a zero point for drama but generally implies it is impossible to have a system wherein no drama exists.

As we can see, if left unattended, a drama quickly becomes a manageable crisis. However, some people, most notably sufferers of a condition called Dramahausen, are able to harness the power of the macroscopic systems and apply them to normally acceptable situations.

A Dramahausen sufferer is typified by the ability to resist and magnify all known boundaries of common sense. A Jewish mother, for example, is rated level 10 dh, with the ability to create a drama out of thin air, defying all known laws. Scientists are currently researching Jewish Mother Drama Recovery Facilities in order to circumvent the coming energy crisis and is a very interesting area of research not receiving nearly enough funding.

In addition to potentially overcoming the energy crisis, such research has the added benefit that the drama extracted will allow Jewish mother offspring to lead quiet, peaceful lives.

However, concerns are that extracting drama from a single generation might lead to subsequent generations losing the nutured Dramahausen capabilities. It is therefore possible that this is a very limited and finite resource.

Additional reporting by Dan Lewis