Plasticity and Parasitism

In science, there is a term coined to refer to the ability of matter to extend, flex and bend its form. As far as I can remember it's elasticity. It's probably in this same context that Filipinos start using an inexistent and grammatically erring term such as plasticity to refer to people who tend to fake their perceptions of other people so they can be politically pleasing.

While writing this down, I realized that this has been the longest entry I have done since March.

To conform and avoid social disputes, people either ignore or secrectly converse with other people about idiosyncrasies of everyone around them. Most of us say, we're TRUE to ourselves and HONEST to those we talk to, but up to what extent can we really attest to this self-declared truth? Naturally, we won't admit that we talk about other people because of the agreement that we have settled with those we speak with, by saying "oy, secret lang to ha.." Nonetheless, we know for a fact that in front of those we talk about, we're like innocent children pretending that we care.

How many of your friends can you truly call friends? How many of your workmates can you easily get along with? Who among your siblings come to you to ask how you've been without asking for money? Who among your friends can hug you without making stern expressions behind your back?

Some of us treat friendship as a parasitic relationship in which one benefits when the other is harmed. We think they're harmless because they initially come in beautiful packages. What we don't know is we slowly get killed in their desire and hunger to take what we own, because they hate having nothing for themselves.

Some of us treat friendshp as a social agreement in which in order to be socially considerate we take pride in dealing with people who we know we can't really like no matter what we do.

To some, this is what they call "pakikisama", a euphemism for farce rapport between and among you and your friends. To some, it's what they call being true, yet ironically being a coward for partly revealing what they call truth. To some it is plasticity, a special term used to refer to having no choice but to deal with people you don't like.

This kind of attitude is something one cannot easily remove from modern Filipino culture. No matter how you look at it, however it is accepted by people, one thing remains true--life would be a lot better if people will just be oblivious about everything.

Ignorance is bliss.