Cheers!

Lifestyle as a word first appeared in 1939, courtesy of Alvin Toffler (of Future Shock fame) who foresaw different ways of living as he noted the increase of differences in societies wrought by (as well as blamed on) modernity and capitalism.

The way a person or a group lives is therefore called a lifestyle.  From the sociological view, this covers social relations, food, entertainment, grooming and, at the vanguard, attitudes and values.  In its undiluted form, thus, lifestyle as a way of life includes just about every one of us.

lifestylebohol is a year old. It’s like yesterday though it’s been a yesteryear when this pullout section took its baby steps. With an attitude.

The Creative Team (yes, sir, the team behind the content and layout didn’t have to call itself ‘editorial staff’) led by Sonieta Labasan had Mitzi Ibaya, Jasper Cortes, Christopher Ramasola and Ryan Macalandang, all homegrown artists in their own right in different genres. They were joined soon after by Vida Tirol and Paul Vistal, no lightweight talents themselves.

In lifestylebohol’s maiden issue, the otherwise amorphous word ‘lifestyle’ was defined by The Team with their choice of topics and the shoot-from-the-hip initial column of Mitzi.

The local art scene, culture, historical sites, tourism, infrastructure, people, achievements, celebrations, milestones, changes, community activities, and issues on values, over and above the party scene, this The Team had covered.

The Team was right. Any manner of living is a lifestyle, from the war dance of the Watusis to the half-march of European royalty. As well, the overfed brat in an exclusive enclave could be sadder than that spunky barefoot boy in Pamilacan.

If by chance the word lifestyle had been equated with partying and clothes, the social scene, perfume and roses glossing over the essentials, maybe it can be ascribed to that erstwhile TV show The Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.

Theirs was a lifestyle, all right, but it was only one among many. Needless to say, lifestyle is not limited to consummate consumptions or relationships that relate today and ship out tomorrow.  Earlier, this bi-weekly’s editors had told me that this column would be in the lifestyle section. I thought then that surely I’m not expected to write about the social scene or the latest beauty aids, only.

The first person is preferable, Bingo Dejaresco had said.  As one who takes things with layers of meanings, I took him to mean that as much as possible, the topic is within my experience, which I expanded to topics within my understanding, or taste, or views.

So I wrote about anything that’s illustrative of life, anybody’s, and connected the dots that I saw and conjured those that I didn’t.  The former is experiential, the latter is exponential.  Both are personal.

Thus, while travel can be trifling (one gets to know about places by reading travel brochures), it becomes writing fodder when the experience of being somewhere unfamiliar becomes funny, challenging, or even distracting.

So are friendships, which could be anyone’s (thus my back-to-back articles about Bobbsey Manding Buma-at), or signs on the streets (signage, they’re called; it’s in the dictionary, but how quaint.)

Where I found direction, I gained freedom to write about any topic, from Aachen to Zzyzx and all the letters in-between.  I was getting the feel of lifestylebohol.

Then I meet The Team. Straightaway I was taken by its eclectic vivacity. So was the husband, who instantly recognized talent and kinship. We gained young comrades-in-arms.

In our kind of, well, lifestyle where home is where we find ourselves, anywhere, The Team became a refreshing point of reference.  ‘We’ll meet The Team for dinner while we’re here,’ or ‘Jasper is in Manila, let’s take him out,’ and ‘There’s this invitation from Vida; we should honor it…’

The Team, too, is a year old. With lives to live, careers to build, people to love, differences to bridge, and miles to go to chase their dreams, some members may have come and gone, some have their going held in suspended animation, others may come back another day.

Beset by these immutabilities, The Team, nevertheless, is it that first showed that lifestyle could be cerebral and profound; that a paper’s section devoted to it can also entertain, with lithe gravitas.  The Team never dies or fades away; it just soldiers that way.

(2006)