Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

I enjoy Nescafe commercials. They make me bow my head to whoever thought of such ads. I, too, enjoy drinking coffee. It’s just that I prefer the Batangas’ famous, kapeng barako. Yes, that powder one with a strong aroma and which is boiled in pot and served hot with mud-like something at the bottom of the cup. Then I would say ah after letting the coffee slide through my esophagus down to wherever it goes, heating up my tummy.

So I start asking these so stupid questions. Why don’t I see those unusual yet friendly creatures around me? Those which register as aliens to our minds? Why doesn’t the rain drop in a super slow-motion to create pearl-like droplets so I can pick one and put that on my necklace? Maybe, it’s because I am not drinking Nescafe, or maybe because I am so damn that I get so carried away knowing that all these are just products of their excellent imaginations- to sell the product of course.

In the process of analyzing this mushy idea, I end up questioning the human mind. Are we that stupid that we need such exaggerations to believe in something? Or are they too smart to make us believe in their quality? I know, some may be so smart and the rest may be below average but I don’t think some of us are really stupid. Before, it is just to see is to believe, now it’s to believe is to see exaggerations.

Like beauty products. They are offering star-like skin, without blemishes, without any trace of aging, blah and blah in just a short time. Then flash on your television are the stars with pretty faces and gorgeous bodies and crowd after them, and a lot of special effect. Then you’ll eventually use those products over and over and over again longer than the time they promise- without any difference on your looks but a cut on your finances. And no, you can never blame them because you don’t even bother to read this on their product: use regularly (because you cannot look like your favorite star, because you are born a Filipino and you’ll die a Filipino, because you hold your genes forever and we cannot alter that scientific truth, and the only thing we can offer is a slight change on your looks and damage on your skin if you will desperately overuse our product).

Well, why read when you can get almost everything from viewing? And the world is announcing that people today learn through visuals, the most you could do is use this visual thing as an excuse for not reading and thinking, of course. And that you are not reading, you do not know that this principle is used for teaching kids and not as a defense for your indolence.

Whew, is this how far the humans have gone? After creating Asimo, and that something which landed in Mars to examine its whatever without a man and knowing that Pluto is not really a planet, we are as well declining our common sense. I intend to stress that it is not our common sense that is voluntarily declining, we decline it by ourselves. Before, in the age of the apes, which are allegedly our ancestors, they survive by using that small (smaller than ours) brains. If you notice, their skulls are smaller which means they have smaller brains, but I begin to doubt that they have lesser IQs. Imagine, they have survived those extensive years by their common sense. I mean, if you could just imagine. And now, in modern times, we are even deceived by what is around us, to think that almost everything around us is man-made and is made for our convenience. Does stupidity spell convenience? In this time, somehow it really does.

Humankind travels hundreds of thousands of years before reaching this modern and for some, post-modern age. But our common sense is back-tracking too fast that we over complicate things which are so simple. And why the hell do we experience this? It’s because we get so fascinated with creating and creating things which we proudly call technology to fit our needs. I remember a line from Global Warming: An Inconvenient Truth, just that I cannot recall the exact words. It says, old deeds plus new technologies is global warming, something like this. Well, let’s take it this way. Of course, we will say that the world is getting older so we have to upgrade our technology. But before we also wash clothes and dry them up under the sun. Now, we still wash our clothes but they them up inside a compact drier which emits harmful chemicals that deplete the ozone layer causing global warming and the story goes on. And you’ll say it’s for your convenience. You see, yes we make new technology for our needs and we do this, we are also upgrading our needs then we look for remedies, which will later provoke need, that will provoke remedies. See, it never ends.

Along this, we lose our practicality. Come to think of it, Nescafe doesn’t really need to air those oh-so-nice advertisements for oh-so-blah viewers. You know, all it takes is to taste the product. Well, you can say its marketing strategy, or originality and creativity of people behind. And why do they need these stuffs? It’s not really because there is a huge competition among caffeins and other products. It’s more of this: people are hard to convince, they like proofs, and ironically the proofs that they want are not really proofs but just sort of convincing special effects.