Be the problem. You’ll be the star of the show.

Problems. Solutions. They’re the superstars in our lives. Everything revolves around them. They can’t get enough press. We can’t read enough about them. Or give them enough of our attention. They’re all we think about. Take them away and what interest would our tabloid lives have? We’d be nothing. Nothing to ourselves, we suspect. Definately nothing to others, we’re convinced.  Who wants to be nothing? We need to be everything. Afterall a bad show is one thing, it can be turned around. A quick fix. A new plot. New characters. Re-drafted. Re-crafted. Re-funded. Re-promoted. But a nothing of a show, is a no show. No one shows up to a no show. A non-event is not life, it’s death.

What life would we have without our dramas? Dr. Suess’s cat without a hat? A rhyme without a verse? A verse without meaning? A meaning without reason? A reason without a cause? A cause without a purpose? An stage without a theather? A performance without an audience? No reason to even turn the lights on. No electricity. Death.

In most sought after high paying scripts, problem is the hero. Big time producers know one problem after another draws the audience. Problems are superstars. A great problem sell tickets. Generates electricity. Turns the lights on.  She, He, They, are the life of the party. The star. And the show must go on. We need our stars. Our hero’s. We need our audience. We need to the feel noise of applause on our skin and the heat of it in our ears. We need a cause. Our audiences need a reason to come back.

Solution. An afterthought.  A minor part waiting in the wings. An anti-hero. Or more likely the villian. Write solution a major role, give it a prominent voice and the problems go away. As do the bored audiences.

Our audiences have to have a reason to come back. Otherwise what value do we have? An empty hall ain’t no good to nobody. Everything we have, everything we’ve invested in, all that we are and all that we hope to become, we owe to the ever new problems we have to create.

We have to play to a full house. Our audiences have to have a reason to come back. We’d be nothing without them.