drama

Why are people attracted to drama? I find myself getting drawn into gossip all the time and readily admit that a messy detail or juicy story is a lot more interesting than someone's good news. People slow down and rubberneck at car accidents or emergency situations and buy tabloids to learn about tragedies they have no connection to whatsoever. There are a ton of websites, columns, books, shows that analyze various tragic points in either humanity's or a single person's life, i.e. relationship problems, food problems, family problems, money problems, career problems; and people clamor to absorb all this information for some reason. Is it just to manipulate our emotions without screwing up our own lives or just reveling in others' misery? Do we want to make ourselves feel better about our own lives; like even though our lives may be boring, at least we're not bawling as we drag our possessions out of our soon-to-be ex's apartement? Human nature is funny and inexplainable; we're all so different and yet so similar. How is that possible?