A creepy human characteristic

Natasha Richardson was in a bad accident. I barely know her work, know of her, but it's all over the t.v. and of course the media is short-stroking it all over the place. I'm watching -- oh too bad, what a shame, hope she's all right -- and all the time I'm aware of a ghoulish enjoyment hovering right beneath the surface. Wanting the drama, wanting it to go badly, hoping the "worst" happens. The "good" part of me wants her to be all right. But there's a little creep inside me who wants her to die, wants the grief, wants the horror, wants the drama, wants the soap opera.

It's not just me. I see it all the time in other people. Huge example is when Princess Diana died. Granted, real grief. But we all really got into it. What is that? Our lives are so pathetic and boring and phony that we need something horrible to happen before we can feel anything?

And in each new horror we seek to make ourselves a part of it, make it personal to us, make ourselves the center of the tragedy. "I was doing such and such when I heard, what a shock, how horrible" -- repeating it over and over to each new person, enjoying their reaction. We whip each other into a frenzy, all of us faithful to the good guy persona, tsk tsk, how horrible, how awful for the family, but each of us is getting off on it. Getting off on the pain. Emotional vampires.