i'm suffering from what?

the new problem
a recent commercial, had me sitting up my seat in attention, yet cocking my head to the side in disbelief. it starts out with a room of a shot of young 20-somethings, all fashionably dressed, laughing, talking. enter newcomer, who looks... hesitant. then he pops paxil (the product of said advertisement), and all is well, he suddenly becomes happy, talking to strangers as if they were his lifelong best friends.

watching it, it appeared shyness is now a mental problem. but if it weren't for the voice-over, i wouldn't have learned it was really social anxiety disorder (or social phobia). so with my curiosity piqued, i google the meaning. i had to, what with my recent reflections (waaay before the commercial came on) on whether i've been changing into an introvert, or a reclusive individual (haay, so different from my outgoing, wa-pake personality during childhood. ah, innocence).

the underlying fact is, people nowadays rely on drugs and medicines as their instant solutions to personality trait problems. resorting to pills will only increase dependence (and some serious side effects) on these foreign substances, and we end up with a more f**ked-up individual. in reality, it is society that imposes what it perceives to be normal, then subtly forces people to live up to them, or else suffer the consequences of being labeled as abnormal. not unique. not standing to your own standards, principles, and beliefs.

and whatever happened to celebrating the normalcy of life, anyway? for that matter, what is normal? so people have problems, that's normal, isn't it?

apparently, m just suffering from too much worrying. but with any luck, modern science will probably come up with a pill for that one, too.

advertising woes
ugh. i used to love this field. but studying in college led me to the belief that we were overhyping most products which weren't really needed in the first place. using psychological manipulation through exaggeration and clever choice of words, in a sense, false advertising boils down as a clear attempt to mislead people. that deception isn't really a good trade-off to however big salary it would've provided me.

take for example SUVs. here in snowy east coast, i've been hearing a lot of highway accidents involving these vehicles. reports surfaced that many owners thought they were invincible machineries, capable of driving any-weather conditions (hence turning drivers into road warriors, and sometimes, with crappy bad-ass attitudes to match their newfound superiority). watching those same commercials, i wouldn't blame them for thinking so. sigh.