A philosopher speaks of drama

 The philosopher, disguised as an Uber driver, was talking about how to live a good life.

He was young, tattooed and dreadlocked. He’d been a truck driver, but wanted to spend less time on the road and more time with his daughters. He’d found that he could make as much money driving people like me to the airport as he could driving freight in trucks.

His recipe for a better life: Treat yourself to better art.

He said I should go to the theater to see live drama, not movies. There is something about a live performance, he said, that’s healing. A performance is recreation, a re-creation of a play. Each is different. The mistakes are there, to be seen and pondered, rather than left on the film editor’s cutting floor. 

The performance is an activity — an attempt, an effort. There are no pretenses to perfection.

Art is like that, he said. Or should be like that.

Same with music, he said: Go to live shows. Don’t hide in your room and listen to recordings.

He searches for discount tickets so he can take his daughters. He wants them to experience drama in a theater. He wants them to see a lot of plays, to learn for themselves what they like and what they don’t before they go off to high school and college to learn what they should like.

So they go to the theater. He said I should too.