Rational Insanity
By Bryan Mari Argos

Type: obscure

Last week, I had an interesting topic request from Hellpen; she asked me to write about the social outcast. I have been dwelling on the topic for almost a week now trying to figure out how I would aim at the issue. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I really needn't aim at the issue after all. The issue of social rejection is such a glaring issue that we don't really need any long-haired windedness to talk about it candidly. This topic actually slaps us right in the face for every time we see someone with ebony-black fingernails walking around in a mall on Valentines day or a young Christina-Ricci-hair–typed (see: the Addams Family) girl with horn-rimmed glasses eating broccoli in a pizza parlor. Social rejection is obscure – only to those who are potential advocates of bigotry. In other words, ang makitid lang utak ang indi maka-intindi that all people are unique, and we have no business sticking our noses into how other people express this uniqueness (no matter how eccentric such an expression may be); much less comment on how this uniqueness is expressed.

The social outcast is an internal genius. I have a few friends who are very antisocial (me, being one, most of the time) who know more about Hollywood than any condescending fool who seems to have every single copy of “People” in their magazine racks. Then there's this good friend of mine (girl) who is a philosophy-buff, but walks around in a Betty Boop shirt, uncomfortably loose pedals, unwashed sneakers, and a fisherman's cap to top it all off; but hey, has anybody really actually considered that these people, aside from their being “out there”, have really notable talents and abilities? Of course, let's not go to tightrope walking over the Andes or cart-wheeling from here to eternity (because these things are damned impossible) but then did it ever occur to us that sometimes we cannot even write a decent line of poetry when these people spend their solitary hours writing full epics and sonnets? Shame on us.

Now, if you are saying that my words are too chummy to the social outcast because some of them might be genuinely delinquent, I would beg to disagree. It is the taboo of social acceptance that gives us the impression that the social outcast is a delinquent. If we don't fit into society, what else can we be called? Turn the tables – did it really ever occur to us that the social outcast is not really that way because society has chosen to set them aside, rather, it's the social outcast who chooses to reject society because they can live with themselves perfectly (who needs a judgmental society?). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the social outcast is probably the world's most contented cow; society doesn't matter to him/her anyway, and he/she lives in perfect harmony with him/herself, so, why on earth does society have to stick its nose into the lives of these people when social attention is the last thing they would want from this planet?

Hey, if you are a slender, fashionista type with the flustering red nails and the cheekishly pink lipstick, look again dear; you might just have fallen short of the true definition of bitchiness. Kun alang-alang ka man lang, indi na pag-ambisyon. Doesn't it make you just turn red when after all the futile hours in the gym, the pricey spas and body-peelings, the five hundred peso do, and the Loius Vuitton-pwe! (shit, I don't even know how to spell that!) get-up, this stringy girl in a black oversized shirt burying her nose in “The Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is the one who basks in society's attention simply because she does not fit in? I'll bet you do; but remember, it's trying to fit in that always gives us away – in a society like ours, the social outcast has achieved something most of us could only dream of – the ability to go beyond society and treat it like it does not exist and the talent of being genuinely contented with their uniqueness. “Do not try to fit into society”, so the social outcast would say, “fit society out.” Dig that, how many people can truly say that they are happy with themselves. Hypocrisy is saying that everybody is happy with themselves – I wouldn't say so – the mushrooming cosmetic surgery clinics, spas, body-sculpting products, the bumper crop of bleaching creams, internal beauty pills, and anti-aging gels is proof enough that people are increasingly getting less and less satisfied with themselves. Society is eating us up; lucky for the latest wrung on the ladder of evolution, a creature who has evolved ahead of the nit-picking gossipers of our generation, a creature who would actually go back to a bookstore everyday to read a book, without having to buy that book, a creature with the infinitely drab expressionless face, but with the readiest sweetest smile for those who can understand – the social outcast. I'd say Charles Darwin need not worry about finding the missing link after all, because it jumped millions of years ahead of him; they are called the socio-simian-sapiens, the members of this society who don't know the difference between a raindrop and bird dung even if they are hit right smack on their faces! Polish your brains, not your nails! Bleach your perceptions, not your skin! Validate your priorities, not your spa appointment. Trim your limitations, not your skirt!

Be rational; be insane… every once in a while!TTFN! Thanks Hellpen! Way to go! Welcome to the RI Barkada! Hello to my dearest readers, Anne, Mary Dale, Chan,Michelle, Zarthus, Jonald, Mr. Bobot, Vic, Vincent, and Rex, Alex, Arvin, Corz, Jim, Kiara, Malikh, Audrae, Franz, Hendrick, Janice, Jay, Jim, Jonathan, Mark, Marz, Mel, Pres, Nhonoy, Niel, Piper, Rheavil, Joey, Alma, Rodolfo, Ecker, Ryan, Roni, Ian, Narle, Sunny and to Anuj of CMC, I love you all! Byers! Salamat gid sa mga walang-hintong text and reactions nyo! Catch Rational Insanity in TNT's online edition, check us out at www.thenewstoday.info, text me at (0920)9254269, or email me at prague@eudoramail.com . Byers! Mmmmmmmwah!