Earlier this evening I sat outside a pub with a friend. At the next table, two men in their early 20s sat and sparked up cigars. Nothing special about that, except it became pretty clear that one of the cigar smokers wasn’t enjoying the experience at all. He pretended to, maintaining face in front of his friend and their female companions, but his non-verbal signals made his discomfort apparent.

I thought it would make an interesting bit of colour in a screenplay, and thinking about why that was so realised that it contained what so many people claim is the essence of drama: conflict. He was smoking the cigar in an attempt to project an image that was at odds with his actual feelings about the coils of smoke he was inhaling. In his head, a sophisticate enjoying an experience that marked him out from those around him with mere cigarettes. In his throat, foul smelling gases that he didn’t want anywhere near him.

Conflict is found in the tiniest places in our lives. Granny likes Mario Lanza, grandad swears by Glen Miller. Vernon likes Tabasco, Herbie prefers Reggae Reggae sauce. You say po-tay-to and I say po-tah-to. At some level, we invest ourselves in these distinctions, trivial as they are, because they ensure that we are not as others. What seems a stylistic tic, an apparently superficial choice, can run pretty deep: there are a whole bunch of magazines that devote considerable number of pages to applauding or penalising the outfits that female celebrities wear.

The good news is, the more distinctions you can find, the more dramatic potential you’ve come across. Interesting the way that people respond to that. When people want to be friends, the biggest differences are no obstacle. If animosity appears, every distinction is magnified and becomes evidence of vile perfidy.

There’s no differences like the ones that separate allies. Anyone who’s been around political pundits will realise that: minor differences of doctrine can place people on different sides of the fence forever. I remember a story about Islamic clerics in Afghanistan who had held a meeting to decide what to do about the question of homosexuals. After much weighty debate, the conclave divided (of course) into two, err, camps. One faction favoured dropping gays off buildings to kill them. The other proposed putting them in pits and burying them alive. Naturally, each group thought the other’s solution was wrong.

It’s at this point that I’m reminded of Robert Anton Wilson’s dictum that ‘We are living on the Planet of the Apes’. And while we’re here, one way to make the best of the situation is to make dramas, so that at least people won’t get killed as they express differences of opinion, but instead make entertainment from them. Or would that be art? Anyone care to dispute with me on which it would be..?