Lookism

 

                                              [image: yotbe.com, tiktok.com]

Kilig!

Lately, there is a content creator named Risky Rian who is making girls swoon over his good looks. He suddenly sits beside a girl and smiles charmingly. The girl would then be charmed and smiles back with all the exhilaration there is.

Kilig according to the Urban Dictionary is an expression, reaction, or feeling that makes someone blush after an event. It is now accepted as a word paired with other English ones.

But what if the person does not have the same looks of Rian? Would the girls feel kilig over an unattractive male?

The ‘beauty bias’, or lookism, is the idea that someone is privileged because they are pretty, good looking or attractive. It’s not usually something that we talk about much, but it’s out there. Unfortunately, it means that if you don’t fit into society’s standards of beauty, or you’re not considered good looking, you could well miss out a lot [Owen, 2020].

Broadly speaking, the beauty bias concerns the favorable treatment that individuals receive when they are deemed more attractive, regardless of whether this happens consciously or unconsciously – and few individuals, let alone employers, admit to preferring to work with others based on their higher levels of attractiveness.

The poor will then be marginalized since they cannot afford cosmetics and beautiful clothes. They cannot augment their looks by plastic surgery and cannot afford moisturizers to soften their skins.

While the effects of being unattractive are arguably not as bad as discrimination based on gender, race, class, or disability, discrimination based on looks presents an injustice. However, there are certain epistemic injustices unattractive people may suffer in addition to being deprived of other social and economic goods [Mason, 2021].

Paired with the ignorance of people, we are always judged by the way we look. But then, those whose mindset are geared towards actualization, see people as they are.

Egocentric

 

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Sija da pirme.

There are long discourses on why people can be selfish most of the time. The selfishness manifests when others’ feelings, well-being and circumstances are NOT considered.

Selfishness is a situated desire to act in a way that benefits oneself and violates a prevailing social expectation, such that it disregards the desires of others in the situation.

According to Thomas Hobbes, human nature is inherently selfish and driven by a desire for power. Before civilization, Hobbes said, this selfishness led to anarchy: Each person sought power for themselves, creating an all-out war.

But with the advent of cognition and self-awareness leading Maslow’s theorized actualization, people tend to transcend selfishness. So, what then hampers its attainment?

Self-actualization is the process of becoming. The process is about becoming who you are in terms of self-awareness, fulfillment, appreciation, and satisfaction. Self-actualizers have a high degree of social consciousness. They have concern for the welfare of humankind.

As human beings, it can be challenging to step outside of ourselves with a sense of self-awareness. But when we consider this concept of self-actualization, it's important to understand we need clarity in how we see ourselves and our human potential (Lyons, 2021).

Therefore, it is safe to say that selfish and self-centered individuals barely reach the level of BEING. Maslow even theorized that for this to happen, DEPRIVATION was experienced by these individuals to behave that way.

The main reason why others are not generous of extending themselves to others is because they still feel that they are LACKING.

Because self-actualization involves a strong sense of purpose and self-awareness as well as the imperative that one's basic needs are met, it can be a challenging goal to reach.

 

The Invasion

 

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What is personal space?

Personal space can be defined as the comfortable distance between you and another person that you are talking to or stood next to. If someone invades your personal space, it means they are too close to you, and they are making you feel uncomfortable.

Personal space is important because it helps people feel safe and comfortable. If someone invades your personal space, one can feel uncomfortable and unwanted (twnkl.com).

Lately, there is a heated discussion on social media when award-winning actress Lea Salonga shooed some fans outside her dressing room.

CNN Philippines reported: In the now-viral video, some fans asked Lea Salonga for a photo from outside her dressing room, claiming they are friends of the co-producer of the show, former actress G Tongi. Salonga said they aren't allowed backstage unless they are on the guest list for "security purposes." She said the fans can wait outside where she will accept their request.

There are those who mentioned about her being a snob. But isn’t it true that it can be alarming when strangers invade your private space?

Personal space is the area, or unspoken boundary, that people feel necessary to set between themselves and others to feel comfortable during interaction.  It is the unwritten rule for distance that people should observe when meeting others to maintain a level of personal and professional comfort. Personal space apart from being an important form of body language, is also a key component of all relationships, and must be respected (Mehta, 2020).

Even if actors are public figures, we still have to understand how to draw the line between respect and being rude by invading others’ personal spaces.

Blasphemous

 

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Hinsobrahan da na binayot!

Controversy stirred by a drag performance that used Catholic Mass song "Ama Namin" and featured a twerking Jesus performed by PURA Luca Vega. The Filipino drag queen sparked heated debates on social media after posting a video of herself singing an Ama Namin remix to a cheering crowd at a bar.

The remix was a punk rock version of the Catholic Mass worship song, and Vega performed this in an outfit that seems to portray Jesus Christ.

Even the LGBTQ community cried foul on the seemingly blasphemous portrayal of the Lord’s Prayer which is revered by Christians especially by the Catholic community.

The drag queen mentioned about freedom of expression and even stood on her footing that there is nothing wrong with what she did. But isn’t there a line drawn on the so-called “freedom”? What if your expression brings distress, insult and psychological disturbance to the majority?

"In my opinion, this is the height of the misuse and abuse of our freedom of expression that borders on criminal activity," Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said Thursday reported by Philippine Star.

There is nothing wrong with being gay and drag is an expression already accepted by the masses. But the universal value of respect must be practiced by everyone who is straight, gay or whatever gender one identifies with.

Most of the time, the need to fuel up a controversy has a psychological implication. Persons who perform taboo might have issues on self-knowledge and awareness.

Who would have known this Luka if she did not perform such infamy anyway?

Alienation

 

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Kalaong nija kun dako an ranggo, dako na sab sija na tawo!

It has been said that you are not your position. But there are those who are drunk with it to the point that they feel invincible. They see others as if they are mere pawns in the game.

Arthur C. Brooks in an article titled “A Profession Is Not a Personality” said: Reducing yourself to any single characteristic, whether it be your title or your job performance, is a deeply damaging act.

Your career or job should be an extension of you, not vice versa. You are human– a father, mother, friend, brother, sister or a parishioner. You are a mother of two who is a CEO… not just a manager or something else.

Trapped in an energetic field that feeds on itself to create the aura they dwell within, powerful persons are bound to get drunk on their own sense of importance (Nangia, 2011).

You will see these persons around. They claim that they deserve the respect and accolade brought about by their positions because they worked hard to attain their jobs. This may sound correct but the idea of being reduced to the “position” is not ideal. You are human with being first prior to becoming an engineer, actress, doctor or anything else.

Workism is the belief that employment is not only necessary for economic production but is also the centerpiece of one's identity and life purpose. This was coined by American journalist Derek Thompson, in 2019.

Getting drunk with the position you have can lead to your own alienation. People will also objectify you as your work. By the time you retire or lose your job, they cannot see your worth. You yourself allowed it to happen during your peak moments.

Distracted

 

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Jaon pay apason ugsa di na magdugay sa trabaho…

Before, time can still be spent for extra work in the office since there were few options. Not like now when a new restaurant is opening and there seems to be a need to grace the event to post something on social media. With this, it seems that you are having a good life. Or there is a need to update with the lives of friends and try not to be left out since they just come from a vacation abroad.

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, refers to the feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are. It involves a deep sense of envy and affects self-esteem.

People of this generation need to have some sort of happy moments to be posted on social media so for them to be validated that they are “living their lives”. That’s why they need to be fast in doing their work so to find “moments” they can use in updating their status.

Since the advent of social media FOMO has become more obvious. Social media has accelerated the FOMO phenomenon in several ways. It provides a situation in which people are comparing their regular lives to the highlights of others' lives (Scott, 2022).

Before, work seemed to have a blessing on its own that teachers spend extra time in checking papers and writing lesson plans and training their learners outside school hours because there were no distractions like online games and video recordings for Tiktok postings.

FOMO can also lead people into behaviors that actively do them harm. In 2018, a Credit Karma/Qualtrics study of 1,045 Americans aged 18-34 revealed that almost 40 percent had gone into debt so they could "keep up" with the lifestyles of friends that they had seen on social media. Another study showed that FOMO causes fatigue, stress, and sleep problems in university students (Bradshaw, 2019).

There is nothing wrong with being happy and finding happiness through relationships and adventures. But if these are being dictated by something rooted from envy, that is another story.

Time magazine reported: Research findings show those with low levels of satisfaction of the fundamental needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness tend towards higher levels of fear of missing out as do those with lower levels of general mood and overall life satisfaction.

We need to be grateful with what we have. Dreams and ambitions propel us to better heights, but we need to guard our desires whether these are rooted to the attainment of self-actualization or purely driven out by the need to compete.

Poor Quality

 

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Hamok taghimo hampan yay nahimo.

There is this current study on multitasking which revisits the so-called efficacy of work in the 21^st century. People seem to embrace the world where multitasking is the name of the game. There are those who are attending virtual meetings while signing papers and checking emails. There is nothing wrong about it. Yet, something is happening to the brain.

A report from healthshots.com mentions: Multitasking is not just inefficient and affects your quality of work, but it is stressful. This is because when you perform many tasks at one time, your brain continuously switches between tasks. This increases the chances of mistakes and errors at work and can result in high stress and anxiety levels.

This is a logical consequence of the lack of focus characteristic of multitasking. When doing several things at once, your mind is divided between them so it’s only natural that your mistakes will multiply. And according to the Stanford research, multitaskers are terrible at filtering out irrelevant information.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with performing one task at a time, but the QUALITY of the work and output will be at stake.

In 2011, the University of California, San Francisco published a research study showing how quickly shifting from one task to another impacts short term memory. The impact is always negative and becomes increasingly apparent as a person gets older. Just because one can handle the tasks right now does not mean that in 5 or 10 years, the person will be able to go on about life in the same way.

This is one of the discourses on the study of higher order thinking at present. It seems that students are too distracted with too many things their minds cannot concentrate on a single task. Shifts of concentration happen and the ability to deepen ideas are hampered. They need instant answers through Google and AI (like Chat GPT) so that they can do more things at once.

Yes, we are too fast but our COGNITION is slow.