The quality of consciousness

We live in a society that is addicted to drama.

Our addiction to drama is so strong that we are unconsciously incompetent in the quality of our consciousness.

And there are many individuals, politicians and corporations that take advantage of that.

We sacrifice our health and wellbeing because our addiction to drama is so strong that we neglect to be benevolent to ourselves.

We vote for politicians that promise us salvation from “the enemy”, yet these politicians turn out to be incompetent, venal and self-serving when they gain office.

I recently launched the eBook edition of my new book “Fight for Your Freedom or Die Trying - No-one is coming to f*cking save you” in Melbourne Australia, and I was talking with a good friend I’ve known for 18 years. In our conversation, I was describing an unconsciously-incompetent personality that I have observed in corporations. I call it the “I am the smartest person in the room” personality.

It seems to affect all genders and cultures, and it is an unconscious entitlement to make sure that everyone in every meeting knows that they are the ‘smartest-person’ in the room. This personality seems to be entirely averse to listening to anything that anyone else has to say, and is convinced of their own superiority.

It is low-quality consciousness, and has the effect of lowering the emotional intelligence of the whole team. It actively destroys productivity and it alienates high-performing teams by denying them the psychological safety to challenge and debate.

My friend gave me a charity donation for a signed paperback copy of my new book. Then, very kindly, read my book over the next two days, and then in a series of messages immediately adopted the “smartest person in the room” personality and proceeded to tell me what actions I needed to take to deal with my own addiction to drama and how one area of the book was wrong and needed correcting.

I laughed out loud when I listened to their messages. My friend was absolutely right in that I had been addicted to drama for many years, and I own that.

What I had failed to realise was the addiction had eroded my boundaries in that I had been effectively giving my friend free consulting for many years without getting anything in return of value. Indeed, several other friends had specifically warned me about this friend, but out of kindness I had overlooked their 'red flags'.

What needed to be strongly corrected was my own boundaries in allowing my friend to use me in that way.

My new book is written to specifically engage an audience who are awakening to the pain of what addiction to drama is costing them, and calling them to take action to outwit their addiction and improve the quality of their consciousness.

There may well have been some really good value in the feedback, but because my friend’s unsolicited feedback message was delivered from the entitled “I am the smartest person in the room” personality, I didn’t value it.

My friend was absolutely right in that I had been addicted to drama for many years, and I own that. What I had failed to realise was the addiction had eroded my boundaries in that I had been effectively giving my friend free consulting for many years without getting anything in return of value. What needed to be strongly corrected was my own boundaries in allowing my friend to use me.

I love this friend dearly, so I told them how I appreciated them and then asked them to consider that the book is deliberately written for an audience who are addicted to drama to encourage them to self-reflect on what the addiction is costing them. Their response to this was ‘oh yes I see’.

But my friend clearly did not see anything. I could tell that they had failed to receive the message of my book to do any self-reflection that might awaken them to their own unconscious incompetence and what it was costing them.

What I felt then was sadness that my book had apparently not made a difference in their life.

My friend is a high-achiever, a successful corporate executive, a graduate of a global top-10 engineering school, and they are already significantly wealthy as a result. My friend had a difficult childhood with two harsh parents who belittled them and discounted their successes and achievements. It has my friend desperately trying to prove that they are worthy enough to be loved.

My friend’s addiction to drama has manifested itself in this entitlement to be the smartest person in the room because they’re trying desperately to gain the love and approval of their parents, and of everyone else around them, by “saving” them from “being wrong”. This is an existential trap for my friend, if they weren’t fighting for the acceptance and approval of their parents all the time, they wouldn’t feel like they existed anymore. But it is also stopping them from achieving their dreams. This is low-quality of consciousness.

So what does a good quality of consciousness look like? From my perspective, it is a strong self-awareness about the existential traps that addiction to drama has us caught in - and a rock-solid commitment to saving ourselves first. The acknowledgement that “no-one is coming to f*cking save us” is a very uncomfortable first step on our journey to engage with our addiction to drama. It is a clear acknowledgement that salvation is a myth.

And this is what my friend is really struggling with, to own and accept their addiction to drama, and to choose to save themselves. Because to do so, would mean their struggle & sacrifice for achievement to gain parental acceptance would cease to have meaning for them. An existential threat.

There are three aspects to addiction to drama, and each is associated with an existential threat:

• Addiction to outrage

• Addiction to rescuing (or saving) others

• Addiction to blaming

Addiction to outrage is driven by the fear of rejection, and it’s an existential trap because the person involved doesn’t feel like they exist unless they are fighting to reject something or someone.

Addiction to rescuing is driven by the fear of being wrong, and it’s an existential trap because the person involved doesn’t feel like they exist unless they are in a position of righteousness. The person in this trap would rather be dead than be wrong and they are willing to prove it by sacrificing themselves.

Addiction to blaming is driven by the fear of being excluded, and it’s an existential trap because the person involved doesn’t feel like they exist unless they are fighting to belong by blaming themselves or someone else.

What my friend is unconscious of is how deeply they are caught in all three of these traps, and in-denial that they have low emotional intelligence as a result.

The way out of these traps is via self-knowledge, self-benevolence and self-sovereignty.

Self-knowledge is the ability to recognise that we all have these traps and accept that we are addicted to drama.

Knowing that we all fall into the traps from time-to-time, and being able to rapidly recognise when we have fallen into them, self-benevolence is the grace we give ourselves to course-correct for the emotional weather that we are experiencing.

Self-sovereignty means using our voice to say a powerful “no” to those that seek to exploit addiction to drama in ourselves or others for their own personal or political gain.

This isn’t a one-off expense, this is an on-going daily investment improving our quality of consciousness with the effect of significantly increasing our emotional intelligence over-time by the compounding effect of the incremental insights.

The opposite to love is not hatred, it is indifference. Engaging in wilful ignorance by pretending that we’re not addicted to drama and that everyone else is, is an act of self-denial.

My call to action is for you to introspect and look at where you are addicted to drama, and what you can do to outwit your addiction.

To have a good quality of consciousness you have to fight for your freedom from the existential traps.

Once we are on the journey then our next step is expanding our capacity for consciousness.

Improving our capacity for consciousness is delivered by being philanthropic.

We have many examples of the children of second and third generation of wealth who have zero empathy for the economic and survival hardships that the majority of the human population have to deal with.

The shit show of geo-politics in 2025 has been entirely driven by the addiction to drama of trust-fund babies who have not just low-quality consciousness, they also lack capacity for consciousness.

Actively practicing philanthropy does not just deliver relief to the suffering from hardship, it expands our capacity for consciousness by exposing us to the problems of existence of others.

Being exposed to the hardship that the less fortunate in our community have to deal with expands our quality AND capacity for consciousness. It has the effect of increasing both our emotional intelligence AND our social intelligence.

The most effective philanthropic method for growing our capacity for consciousness is in the giving of our time in delivery of hands-on activities and resources. By doing hands-on work, and providing resources that directly benefit the recipients we become a lot more conscious of the hardships & challenges.

Financial donations are still important but they are far less beneficial in improving our quality-of and capacity-for consciousness.

In conclusion, when you listen to the audio edition, or read, my new book, then my request is that you choose to temporarily suspend your critical faculty for outrage, for blame and shame and for righteousness, and in its place put a genuine curiosity to learn something that is valuable for you personally in improving the quality AND the capacity of your consciousness.

The kind of feedback that I love is feedback that tells me how you felt when you read the book, and let me know the one thing in your life you’re going to do differently as a result of reading it.

I can guarantee that there will definitely be some existential discomfort in doing this, and that’s exactly where you should be if you’re going to learn how to outwit your addiction to drama. I would love to hear about that too if you feel like sharing it.

On the other hand, if you think you’re the smartest person in the room and you insist that your critical opinion is valuable for me to hear then you need to consider what you will be actively demonstrating is your ignorance and lack of empathy in yourself, for yourself.

Because no-one actually cares whether you are smart or not, and no-one is coming to f*cking save you from your addiction to drama. Only you can do that. You have to fight for your freedom or die trying.

To find out when the audiobook version is out for my new book ‘Fight For Your Freedom or Die Trying’ click here and fill out the short form.

ABOUT ME

Justin Lodge is a best selling author of 5 books, a public speaker, philanthropist and conscious leader. He is a professional coach, a designer, an engineer, a consultant and a Dad. He is passionate about creating insights and transformations for his clients. His latest book “Fight for Your Freedom or Die Trying” is an Amazon #1 best seller, and is an opportunity for you to join a movement of positive change and personal empowerment.