Monsters

Children went trick-or-treating in our subdivision today. It's an annual tradition in our community to have them celebrate the very American custom of begging strangers for candies. Nothing is more American than middle class Quezon City suburbia, and we certainly did not disappoint. I can't wait for the Thanskgiving parade next month.

This practice of dressing up as monsters once a year has been described in the classic seminal work "Mean Girls" as "that one time of the year where girls get to dress slutty and not get judged for it."

Which got me wondering, "What is this fascination to dressing up as the things we fear the most?"
 
This lead me to asking the question, "what is it that we fear the most, and why?"

I believe that the monsters we fear the most are the creative abstraction of our very human and very personal fears.

I.

Vampires, for example. These damned creatures are damned to spend their lives in darkness, and to walk centuries alone, never making any strong relationships that could outlast mortal lives. Vampires are creatures who are doomed to lose everyone they love, their families, lovers, friends. They are cursed to spend all eternity with other vampires, creatures as equally corrupt as they are. Together, they force themselves to accept clan rules, to embrace loyalties based on necessities.

We fear vampires because we are scared of growing old alone. We are afraid of our own sins, of our own corruption, and that our flaws will condemn us to never make strong bonds with others. We fear that we must live in darkness because others will never accept us. We accept bonds with other equally corrupted being because we fear they are the only ones who will understand. Vampires stand for that fear in all of us of being too different, of being not good enough.

Werewolves, on the other hand, are creatures who lose control of themselves when the moon is full. How Catholic: feeling guilty for acts committed, but would not take responsibility for any of it. Instead, liability falls to the moon, a celestial presence. "It's not me that ravaged your daughter and destroyed everything in my path, it's the moon." Which sounds like an excuse as good as "the Devil made me do it" and "It was God's will that I am running for Governor of your poverty-stricken province." It's never our fault, is it? It's the pressure of having to deliver quantifiable results, it's the traffic, it's the low carb diet. There's always something to blame, there's always the moon.

Ghosts. What could be more fearsome than spirits earthbound for all eternity? Ghosts are mere shadows of their former selves. Beings that are much less of the beings they used to be. Beings that will never be "becomings". The best of their existence is now behind them, and they can never become anything more than what they are: remnants of lives formerly vibrant, formerly real.

Our fear of ghosts is rooted in our fear of being disappointments. We  fear that we have reached our prime, and we are nothing but wraiths desperately clinging on to something we still hold precious. Like a lover clinging to a pillow on an empty bed, like all the medals we polish dirt off from. We are afraid of seeing everyone in our lives move on, to leave us behind forever tied to memories they have forgotten.

Just as similarly lifeless are zombies. In recent years, zombies have grown into fashion. From zombie-themed runs to hit zombie dramas on TV. Zombies are animated corpses driven by their basic needs to consume, consume, consume.

Zombies reflect our fear of losing our identities. Of becoming mindless mobs, acting under an imperative that we have no control over. As much as we fear authoritative governments and dictators, our love for all the civil liberties we enjoy has made us afraid of zombies, creatures tthat have no individual personalities. Each zombie can stand for the other. They are the faceless mob, the unthinking collective, loyal subjects of hunger's dictates.

Yet, the odd thing is, zombie behavior reflects that of consumerist behavior. Anyone who has seen people lined up for the newest Apple product will surely agree with me. In this day and age, corporations are obsessed with SELL, SELL, SELL.

And all you can think of is BUY, BUY, BUY. Buy a condo, an iPhone, a car, a blended coffe-based beverage, a new outfit for Spring. Marketing is nothing more than brainwashing, advertising is just a hip way of calling propaganda without scaring people off. Marketing is crowdcontrol so you zombies can line up nicely for the store opening. Marketing wants you to believe you need these things in your lives, when all you really need is to DO SOMETHING GOOD, and not HAVE SOMETHING GOOD. Stop WANTING TO HAVE, and START WANTING TO DO. Do not measure your existence by the number of things you have, but the number of things you have DONE. Do not be a zombie, GET A LIFE.

II.

Perhaps, we should take a look at kids and their idea of dressing up in costume. While our costumes reflect those that we fear the most, theirs give us an idea of what they want to be the most: princesses and heroes, and robots and knights, soldiers and Iron Man, firemen and ballerinas.

III.

So, why do we dress up as the things we fear the most?

Because in becoming them, we subvert our fears. By embracing them, by becoming them, we become in control. We are in control of our fears of growing old alone, of being villified, of consuming everything without a thought. We feel most alive when we know being dead is just a matter of make-up and old clothes.

Bidder gets to Bed Her - Virginity Sold at Auction

A Brazilian student has auctioned off her virginity, and has sold it for a whopping $780,000. As part of a documentary film (read: Not Porn), a Brazilian student has sold her virginity online to a Japanese man.

Now, although I have sold mine at a far cheaper price (read: a pack of cigarettes), I, for one, do not feel shortchanged. After all, I really needed that smoke.

This does say something about how much men value a woman's virginity to be. Which could have been cheaper had they gone to AyosDito.ph instead.

Apparently, the Brazilian student who auctioned off her virginity plans to use parts of the proceed to building homes for the homeless. In related news: Man who brought a Brazilian student's virginity, now homeless.

Anti Social Media

I. Do we really need to socialize as much as we do?

I feel bombarded by so many offers to go unlimited in texting, calling, and surfing the net. It's great that competition in the industry is strong enough to drive all players into offering better and better promos to consumers.

But, really, do we need to be connected this much? Do I need a limitless amount of SMS in a day to connect with my family and friends? Do I need to keep posting photos of what I had for lunch, or broadcast to the world which milk tea place I go to? How many minutes should I spend on the phone in a day?

II. Face-Hooked?

Facebook has grown from a social networking site to a connectivity platform of its own. With the dynamics of the website ever changing and "ever improving", we have to rethink it as more than a website... it's an enabler of media and communications consumption.

Everything we consume digitally can be found on Facebook: news, videos, photographs of long lost uncles hanging out with his friends from high school, socialist rant from the girl who works at the next table, the engagement announcement of the gay couple you buy ice cream cakes from.

The thing is, the easier we have access to Facebook, the more it drives face-to-face human interaction obsolete.

I hate the fact that I no longer have anything to talk about with some of my friends because we're always on Facebook. At the same time, I hate the fact that I know too much about my friends than I care to. I hate it how I no longer spend hours on the phone with my friend who is also a Doctor Who fan because we've already talked about the most recent episode of Doctor Who on his timeline. I didn't bother to call my friend to greet her on her birthday, because I already posted a photo of a cat wearing a birthday hat on her wall.

We need to disconnect to find ourselves whole. We need to step away from the computer, and spend more time under the sun. Disconnect, and instead, engage.

Engage in experiences together. Learn how to selfishly keep memories to yourself. Make moments more memorable, by not sharing them with strangers. Keep things to yourself, because they mean so much more than a trending topic.

They are our lives, dammit.

Being Negative is Not Productive

Lately, I've been suffering from client-induced stress. In an industry hell bent on SELL, SELL, SELL, there's a big pressure to keep shoving products in people's faces, hoping they'll be too blinded by the sparkle to know better.

The hardest part of my job is dealing with clients who don't know what they want, but know exactly what they don't like. I love working clients who have strong stands on issues, who have pinpointed their directions, who can sum up what they want in one word. I think it's pointless to discuss things with clients who are stuck in middle-management with vague notions of what they want, but are quick to point out when they don't want something. Dammit, spend some quite time in the shower and think about what you want! Don't waste both our time to help you search your black soul for what it is you want.

I am so stressed. Sometimes, I come back to the office scowling, being rude to my office mates, unresponsive. I hate it when I take my negativity against others who have nothing to do with it in the first place.

So, the other day, I came to a decision: Being negative is not productive. I will achieve nothing by letting stupid clients get to the best of me. So I'll soldier on, fake enthusiasm until I can't tell the difference between a plastered on smile and genuine mirth.

Being negative is not productive. Feeling down about the amount of workload that I must deal with to make other people rich won't make the task easier.

Meanwhile, with humor, everything is easier. Finding what's funny in every situation is good training ground for a career in stand up comedy.

So, that's what I'll do. Treat everything as a source of material. Your ridiculousness is my comedy gold.

Advice to a young writer

Write as much as you can in your early twenties. Write as bad as you want. Write about the things you think no one would read, write the way Creative Writing programs told you not to Because soon, the bills will come, and you'll start thinking about loans, and houses, and cars, and kids, and utilities, and you'll be worried about having the time to write, and that what little time you'll manage to squeeze in for your writing, you'll probably spend worrying about writing good enough, great enough, to actually sell enough to pay for the bills.

So, in your early twenties, while you can still live off your parents, DO. While it's still not frowned on to let your moneyed friends take the bill, let them. Because you should be writing, young one. You should be writing, writing, writing. You should be building a bank full of unpublished manuscripts.