Let's do the SOSYAL HIGH!

There goes little Johnny clinging and hugging his hardbound books of Calculus, Physical Chemistry and Molecular Biology. You can rarely find him in groups of three or four for he prefers to be with his books. And hey, don’t forget about Mary! She doesn’t want to be a loner. If only she joins Miss Universe, she would have won the Miss Congeniality title. But hey, the hardcore heartthrob Andrei prefers to be on the gym always but sometimes he wants to be serious on to his studies. Girls (and homos) go gaga on to him. But the ordinary Andy prepares his day in an ordinary day. He’s just a commoner, but who cares? He just wants to be true to himself.

Meet Chenelynn. She has an artificially blond hair. Her hair’s very stiff since her hair’s not that straight. She only thinks of boys and boys and Andrei??! Naah. She wears “original” Gucci eyewear, Vuitton bags and shoes in which someone saw her in the local chiangge buying all of these alleged original stuffs. Together with their gang, composed of grotesque zombies namely Chenes, Chorva, Chekes and Chukchak, they strut and stride in the campus, as if they were the stars. But heck, most people think they just want to fake their status in life. They lived in a life full of pretensions and treachery.

Meet the social climbers of the society.

A social climber is someone who seeks social prominence by obsequious behavior. Some define it as a parvenu, one who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class.

I studied in one of the private Catholic-Chinese school here in Davao. Admittedly, some of my classmates were sons and daughters of rich Chinese business tycoons in the city. Ironically, you can’t pinpoint someone or somebody if he’s the son of Davao’s Lucio Tan. They just dressed in a simple way. Often, these rich kids are very humble and they just want to be simple, plus most of them excelled in their academics. I believed that they have their own vision to be successful in the near future.

Well obviously, those unhealthy mandrakes of the society want to be famous, like the sons and daughters of Davao’s Lucio Tan. Social climbers hunger for fame and power. Also, they bully those girls (and even boys), as if they don’t want to see their faces in the planet anymore! They want these two greatest things at their hands in an instant! So the desperate solution for this fraught act is this:

Buy those fake Benetton Bags, straighten their curly hairs, apply some rainbow wonkiness to their hairs, buy this and buy that and etc!

But no, I’m not against of buying fake Vuitton bags, I mean, who wants to buy the original one wherein it costs almost a million bucks, right? Let’s be practical for God’s sake!

The bottom line is this: Let’s be true to ourselves, right? I mean, living in a life full of treachery, lies and pretensions is really hard. Why should we just live within our normal self right? Straighten your personality Chennelyn and company. I know each and everyone of us want to have a peaceful life.

Now this really intrigues me. Why do these malignant mandrakes opt the more difficult way than the easier way? Well, they did follow Robert Frost’s poem though:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Well, they have taken the less traveled road. I do think Robert Frost intends to choose the less traveled road to have a brighter future, that is, if you endure those challenges and dilemmas in life. But these mandrakes have chosen the less traveled road, yes they want challenges and alike, but will they be successful when they reach the end? Isn’t it hard to realize that your efforts to be on top wouldn’t be that great if you just live in a life full of lies?

Reality bites, I guess. Wake up zombies! Let us think of this way: Each and everyone of us are unique with each other. We can be famous in different ways. You can be famous in the field of Science. You can be one of the recipients of Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry, or Medicine... Who knows? You can be the next recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. You can be the next Mother Teresa. You can be the hero of your baranggay.

But then again, who wants fame? Each and every one of us deserves to have privacy. It’s just a matter of time and fate to determine our life in the future. Let the six billion souls of the planet be illumined. You know, life is wonderful. Let’s enjoy life, okay? We must be true to ourselves. Stop social PIRACY. So you want to be like Chenelynn? Think again. I know most of you don’t want to loose your friends, dignity, self-esteem and respect. You don’t want to have a pitiful life, do you?

Human cloning is yet another issue though. :)