STRESS: SPIDERMAN'S BLACK REVENGE-SUIT

Top ten killers by year 2020 will be led by Cancer, and next is (guess what) depression. I’ve read an article in a health magazine which says so. Diabetes, even, comes third.

Reading such article amazed and alarmed me. Times got faster. Technology kept on improving just as fast as a baby born in China. Thing is, because technology has been seen to do so much for the human race, people expect more from it. We want things to be as fast, as efficient and (what the hell) as cheap as the ideal gadget we have in mind. See, people are more impatient now. I know. I am guilty of this too. I don’t like colored cellphones because they have “Opening Folder” flashed on the screen when I open messages. It takes longer to go in and out the inbox. I am pissed by dial-up internet. Even waiting for a jeepney for five minutes annoys me now. I continually remind myself that I shouldn’t be that impatient. But then the thinker in me kicks in and analyzes. So far, I’ve hypothesized that my newfound impatience is a product of technology. And so, I’ve began to despise technology bit by bit. (Never mind I’m writing this article via a Windows XP-ed PC.) Stress comes in handy, doesn’t it? It’s so so destined to kill me someday. Haha.

Depression is a daughter of stress. A more powerful daughter at that. It’s easy. We begin to worry when things don’t go our way. We get sick. It’s either we get physically sick or emotionally sick, or worse, both. Then we become more worried. We try to take a break---go on a vacation perhaps---but then we can’t FULLY relax because office/school/relationship/financial stress will haunt us way before we become aware of it. It’s like Spiderman’s black revenge-suit. It sticks to us when we least like it. It sticks to us even when we try to pull ourselves away from it.

And so we pull ourselves away from it.

Let’s talk about Davao City. I see Davao City as an implicit anti-stress zone. There is a growing coffee shop culture in the city. Salons are paces away from each other. Spa shops got cheaper and cheaper because of tight competition. All with the intention of “making you feel good”, which is, merely a euphemism of “to forget for awhile of your goddamned life”.

In this entry, I’ll use the coffee shop method as an example because it caters to both sexes majorly. Ironically, having coffee in the coziest coffee shops doesn’t come cheap. A cup of ordinary brewed coffee starts at P65. But if you want the yummier ones, be prepared to dish out around P150. The price itself is stressing for the mass Juan de la Cruz. I mean, imagine having this fixation every single day. Enough to feed a family.

Speaking of family, one peaceful night, I saw my dad wearing a black crystal bracelet which didn’t look that good on his skin tone. I asked him where he got it. I said it was hideous. He laughed and said he bought it for P700 because the crystal was believed to “sip in” stress. Some Chinese thing. I rolled my eyes on my once-practical dad who refuses to buy a third pair of shoes because he thinks they’re unnecessary. How stressing!

This morning though, I could just use that bracelet because I was scholastically coerced to finish two papers in two hours. I became caffeine dependent since the beginning of my junior year. I actually forget lunch (this is so not me). It’s obvious I am currently wearing Spidey’s black suit (if you know what I mean).

I’m keeping my fingers crossed about surviving til next sem.