HOMENS SANITY...VANITY INSANITY

The Frivolity of Youth, Vainness and Vanity

Vincent Van Gogh once asked that if boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men. Nicely said coming from a brilliant but troubled mind. Vanity is indeed of youth, of the young and sadly…touted to be a sin. Sin or not, everyone aspires to be beautiful, to remain beautiful. Even if a boy grows to become a man at the expense of committing a mortal sin, the desire to be beautiful will forever linger in the heart of man. I myself cannot imagine growing up to be undesirable because I have given up on vanity.

Therefore, I have committed a mortal sin. I pampered myself today. I become enslaved to vainness and vanity. I got a relaxing full back massage, a refreshing facial and I got both my fingernails and toenails done. Pampering oneself is not to me vanity but a well-deserved reward after working for so long hours that span into days. Simply put, I just gave back something for myself, to take care of my body so that I can go on with life. Relaxing, resting and pampering both your body and soul have never been wrong. Even the good Lord rested on the seventh day. He got tired. How much more mortals like us?

Vanity equates with youth. Some good boys want to grow up to become men earlier than what their chronological ages allow them to be. They are the extraordinary men today, and I hope they have enjoyed life much more than most of us did. I belong to the group of boys who enjoy life as it comes. I did not want to let go of vanity yet, for now. I am very sorry with Van Gogh. I just have to disagree with the great impressionist. It does not necessarily mean that to be a man, a real good man, you just have to let go of the vain frivolity of youth.

Though I committed the sin of being vain, of being of the world, at least today I have rested, I have relaxed and came out all pampered…and never less of a good man I know I was, I am and I will be.

OF UNGGOYS, KALABAWS AND BOLINAOS

How Man is about to Rewrite Evolution

There are just people who are stubborn, not just dumb. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution clearly listed us, the ultimate descendants of the apes. I will not argue with a brilliant mind who I believe is indeed right; however, Charles did not say that we descended from the great apes because we behave similarly to our hirsute cousins. It cannot be denied that some primordial primates are dumb and stubborn. They have all the right to be one because they just evolved from some more primitive four-legged monster, from a reptile maybe. But, man? He has advanced from the most highly-evolved monkey. It follows that man is supposed to be the most sophisticated monkey of them all.

Wrong! Most men are less sophisticated than what they would like to believe about themselves. They are more stubborn and dumber than monkeys who are intelligently schooled in the art of Pavlovian conditioning. I, being one dumb hairless monkey, can attest to how stupid, hard-headed and foolish men are, and mind you, these men are schooled in a real school with human teachers, not trainers nor monkey professors. They are in my school, so you can just imagine how hard a trainer I am, much more than Skinner with his Skinner box.

I was very clear that my requirement for my students to be able to take the pre-final examination in modular programming is the compilation of exercises which we have been working and collating for the past eight months. On the day before the deadline, I discussed with them again the requirements, and I thought they understood what I meant for them to do since nobody objected, nor did somebody ask even a question. Today, 17 dumber, more-stupid-than-monkey students sat down in one class and took the exam as if everything was all right. Being a monkey myself, I blew my top and started acting like a real dumb ass, not monkey.

I remembered a relative who once told me that what he hates of us is our penchant to pretend that we understood what others were saying or were telling us. He continued that we are so proud not to admit that we do not really understand what others intended us to understand. Being one dumb ass, I was dumbstruck. Today, however, I thought I could have answered him by telling that we are not proud...rather, that we are a dumb, stupid, stubborn race of highly-evolved monkeys about to be excommunicated from the primate family. Funny huh! But sadly, so true. Reality bites.

I hate to say now that maybe Darwin is wrong. My Psychology professor before kept on calling us carabao brains for whatever she meant with it. My medical clerkship mentor, a neurologist, kept on referring to how small our brains are – comparable to a bolinao. Anchovies? My golly! From whom did we really descend from? From water buffalos? This I have the guts and the brain to take, but from bolinao? Anchovy-topped pizzas are not popular. We might as well become ginamos. Mas popular, halinun! Could we have evolved directly from anchovies? Well, it’s not really very hard to understand now. Thinking of my students who took the exam, I am really more inclined to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong. Long live the human race! Smells…fishy? Because utok ginamos!

DRESSING UP TO THE NINES

The Clothes Sometimes Make the Man

I always dress well or at least, I am conscious with what I have to wear and how I should wear it. I believe that a man garbed appropriately in an opportune time is a man dressed for success. He is destined to rule over others, to rule the world. The clothes obviously do not make a man, but it can undo a man. A well-iron shirt with crisp collar commands respect. A well-made tie that complements the shirt and matches the suit can seal a deal worth millions. Dress shabbily, wear something that dresses you down and you lost the respect, admiration and the company of beautiful women.

Women cannot just resist a man in clean clothes. There is something in what men wear that attracts women. Is it the shirt that hugs the chest which reminds your lady to forget all about the feathered pillows she buried where her face? Or is it the pair of denim blue jeans that fits snugly your twin bubbles behind and wraps your quads which send electrifying shivers down her spine every time she snuggles up with you. Maybe simply, it is the red bull cap that hides what she loves to rub with her smooth-as-silk cute fingers. Women just cannot get enough of men who love to dress for who else…but women.

Look around. There are quite a number of men, however, who do not seem to care about personal hygiene. There are a sizable number of men who do not bother think about what they wear and how they should wear them. Worse, they cannot dress to the occasion. Formal, semi-formal, casual are words that sadly escape them. Patent leathers, dress shoes, casual slip-ons and sneakers are one and the same. All must be worn with a pair of cotton athletic socks. Pathetic sons of Adam! Even the leafy, all natural pair of boxers courtesy of the Garden of Eden looks even more enticing.

Being clean to some men is foreign. Being smartly dressed is obviously not in vogue. This is not all for vanity though. Dressing well and presenting oneself with much finesse and sophistication is one mark of an educated gentleman. Unfortunately, many misjudge others as downright uneducated because they failed to dress up. They were literally being dressed down. We cannot blame others though especially women who take extra care in presenting themselves to others, not just to men. Definitely, a snowy white goose does not flirt with a muddy ugly gander!

It pays to dress up. It pays to have flair and manly elegance. It pays to be sophisticated – in looks, in words and in actions. Women are always attracted to attractive men. Attraction among these two goes beyond simple biology. It involves a complex interaction of things, one of which is dressing up, carrying and conducting oneself well within and among the crowd. Like a male peacock prancing in all its glory, men because they lack tail feathers, must compensate for the obvious disadvantage by first and simply…dressing up to the nines!

MEN AND THE SIZE OF THEIR TOYS

It's Not Size that Matters but How You Play Them

In our country so obsessed with sheer luck and easy money, it is not surprising that even in the holiest of holy places one sees men with their small toys gambling their lives away. The object of their obsession is the eight-legged kaka of the biggest class of them all, Insecta. Under the glaring heat of the sun, older men with nothing much better to do engage in kaka fighting just outside the Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Their cacophonous jeering that surprises the poor eight-legged creation excites the latter to grab hold of whatever it can and starts immobilizing its poor prey with pristine white sticky web. The prey is its own Classmate, another eight-legged kaka of the biggest class of them all, Insecta.

Are we this savage that our sense of fun and what is entertaining is to prod innocent insects to kill its own? These big, old men with their unequally small toys have not realized that in a way they are altering ecological niches which may ultimately lead to environmental collapse. We cannot just simply allow organisms, however small, to start killing its own or they will soon become extinct like most animals of the Kingdom where we pride ourselves to belong.

Or are we so foolish and dumb that we find so much fun in so mundane a thing as fighting spiders? I thought we are the most intelligent animal. Now, I am beginning to think that only a few of us are really intelligent. How in the world can any sensible, rational, bald ape think that killing is fun, that urging others to kill their own is so satisfying more than what ejaculation ever does to one’s own phallic obsession. Men have definitely changed. Their toys have become smaller. Their brains have shrunk and have sunk down to settle in between their legs.

Or are we so very poor that whatever chance we have to get rich easily, we grab just like the poor kaka does to its own brother, maybe. Who knows? But when you look at this group of older men, there are even some who are publicly accountable because they are public servants. Maybe these dumb men believe that it would be a disservice to mankind if they allow the spiders to proliferate uncontrolled, so being public servants who are ever ready to serve without a grumble, they start killing Spiderman and rid the town of Tobey McGuire. What the heck has happened to us? Marvel Comics?

Whether we have grown so foolishly callous that being entertained by spiders killing their own or that we have grown so dumb poor that shooting Spiderman out of the picture brings us extra income besides publicly (dis)servicing the people, one thing I am sure of is that men should no longer be judged based on the size of their toys but on how they play them. Should a man be so anally fixated that he cannot seem to grow out of his obsession to destroy what is in order, to enjoy mayhem and absolute bedlam, then however big his toy of destruction is, does not make him more of a man but an old, dumb, bald ape regressing to when all his world is centered to what has caused him too much anxiety today – his small penis!

OF SANE BRAIN AND BURLY BRAWN

The Spirit is Willing but the Body is Weak

I was a health freak before. I believe so much on a sane brain sitting atop a burly brawn. I did mine before scientifically, with all the calculations to back me up – BMR, DCA, RHR, RDA, etc. I calculated them all. It did pay off. Together with sensible eating, I did a lot of cardio and weight trainings. I rested and indulged myself in lots of soul-searching and reflections. I was very happy before, contented much with life, looking great and feeling young.

The pressure of work has just gotten over me. I knew I am being irrational justifying something which obviously is not beyond my control. I really could have exercised again and some more if I really have to will it. However, lately, in as much as my sane brain wants me to, my burly brawn just refuses to obey a much higher call. Have I been enslaved by my work? Has the pressure of work really gotten me all to a wrong direction?

Next academic year I asked for only a few teaching loads. I am tired and I knew better before that if I exercise, the adrenaline rush just keeps me going. I sweat a lot that whenever I did cardio rounds before I was soaking wet down my britches. I just loved how my biceps tightened with every rep of curls I made. Until today, I pride myself for owning a pair of well-toned thighs which I can voluntarily twitch to everyone’s envious delight.

I sorely missed exercising. I sorely justified irrationally why I stopped doing what I love most. I am just a sore loser. What the heck!

LOST IN THE AMNESIC VORTEX OF THE PAST

That Damn Retrograde Amnesia!

A History teacher in her test for Industrial Revolution asked in a bonus question when was the People Power Revolution, anticipating its 23rd commemoration this Feb. 25. To her disgustful amazement less than 10 out of 40 students got the date correctly. One of them was a South Korean student to her added surprise. She even got an answer as outdated as 1798. Mostly the answers were in 1940’s, thinking it was at all related to WWII. A few guessed close to 1986. Well, the juniors this year were born obviously after that year.

We cannot blame the students because most of them were just made to memorize dates. In grade school, seldom would teachers asked higher order thinking skill questions. This could very well be the reason why they have forgotten. But how about those of us born before 1986? The Martial Law babies or even the Flower Power bees? Yes, we may have very well remembered the date; however, beyond the date what have we remembered of the real cause of the revolution? What has become of the cause?

All eyes in the world were on us that year. We have rewritten history in the most peaceful means humanity has ever seen, and we were very proud of it. Many courageous men and women risked lives to topple down two agonizing decades of tyranny built by despotic anarchists. I thought all they have gambled would not come to mere futile exercise of democratic uproar. That damn retrograde amnesia that ills most of us! We have forgotten what we were shouting then on the streets. Our memory has painfully failed us.

I would have liked those despotic tyrants with their thousand pairs of shoes to rule the country with such mighty iron fist than what we have today-a soft-hearted president swimming amidst a bloody pool of hardened, opportunistic predators. Before, at least, we knew who were corrupt because they were blatantly proud of it. Today, however obvious corruption is, sadly these people voted by the amnesic mass lie in poker face. Lying has been the game in this no-rules-apply zarzuela.

We have altogether forgotten the spirit of EDSA-what those people then risked their lives for, 23 years ago. Where is the promise of EDSA, whatever it might have been? Why have we become the sick man of Asia? The answer is not clear because we have forgotten that once there was People Power Revolution, that more than two decades ago there were people risking their lives for freedom, which we all thought of to raise us from hell. As time passes by, we have lost our recent memories, our immediate past memories, our remote past memories and sadly, our very own past.

Damn that retrograde amnesia, whoever has thought of naming one!

THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED

The Personal Incentive of Leniency

When I slept last night, I knew I would wake up today in the wrong side of the bed. I am to meet the senior parents later today at 9:30 for a meeting about the graduation. I am not anxious meeting them today; I am more concerned graduating our seniors this March. They may have acquired the knowledge and the skills that will prepare them for college work. Unfortunately, most of them do not have the right attitude to make it past beyond college – the real life.

I have long predicted that this batch this year will not be as good as the previous years. Both the parents and the environment outside the school may have distortedly played adverse roles; however, I am more inclined to think that the school and the sudden change of teachers-because of the almost mass resignation last year-add up to what is my problem today.

Some teachers cannot just instill discipline among the seniors. I have this belief that leniency of the teacher inside the classroom is a thwarted sense to compensate inefficiency in instruction. I believe that for a teacher to command respect, attention and discipline, he should first be a good teacher-preparing well his lessons for the day. Added to this is modeling of good behavior and attitude. Sadly, we failed along this line. I am sad, but I can only do so much.

I would like to sleep back and wake up tomorrow on the right side of the bed.