Art Religion Philosophy Science

Life is, in its essence, social. We are not born out of nothing, we come from flesh and genetics is fatal to us. We are spoiled by our genetic code. Everything we do latches on genetics, be it a fight against, or a struggle to cope with, our DNA. We label others because our genes need to pay off the overload of feeling ourselves superior to one another, a feeling that gets through the social chain in which language hits over and over again just to stamp our DNAs in various modes. Language supplements genetics, nothing more, nothing less.

So why then we, humans, tend to play with language in ways that determine social appurtenance to classes, poetry and the jazz of lustful life? In Romania, a country that fades away in the Eastern landscape of transitional values (whatever the heck that means), postcommunist undesirable social categories find their home by disturbing the normal evolutionary capitalistic frame of bla-bla-blas and law-ialty. One term that poses and poses the "great minds" (elitist freaks) a great problem is "cocalar". And it's not only the term that counts, it's also its ontological counterpart. A "cocalar" is usually a denomination for a tasteless guy who is so uninteresting and undesirable that whatever he does is considered (by the educated crowd) futile and despicable. A "cocalar" is someone who is so arrogant that doesn't realize his being arrogant. The pejorative meaning bears on a social category of gypsy - "cocalar" is actually a gypsy that belongs to the social class "cocalari" (among "ursari" or "caldarari", for instance). However, a "cocalar" is looked down upon as a guy who does no good to society altogether. He is the embodiment of nothingness, he is a nothing that pretends to be something, and, in doing so, he fails to accept his actual real social status. A "cocalar" is deprived of self-awareness: he is so preoccupied with imitating kitchy appearances which could make him cut through the social ranks, that he forgets what he is and will be. The Romanian "cocalar" will always try to show others that he is a VIP in the worst possible ways. He will try to look like a guy full of money and behave like a totally uneducated one; in this sense, disturbing others is always mandatory: the "cocalar" will blow op his car speakers just to be sure that all the district listens to what he, in his delirium tremens, enjoys (usually "manele", another epitaph of the low gypsy culture that penetrated postcommunist Romania like a cultural rainbow). The "cocalar" will never accept that someone else can be "more special" than him; no, he has to be the ONLY one capable of doing what he does. Sameness is always perceived as dangerous - if another cocalar forged the sound of his car's speakers to be louder, our cocalar is threaten and he has to push the limits of his own speakers. Thereby he takes the risk of being considered an annoying guy, although his intention is to pose into a nice guy, a model of courage and power for his "poor" fellows that watch him adventuring into Cocalar's Wonderland, where the White Rabbit is merely a source of fur. 

The "cocalar" doesn't know what modesty is, but dreams of all people being modest, apart from him, the King. He doesn't know why he should be praised, but he needs it. He needs attention like the squirrel needs nuts, but he doesn't want to be nuts - no, he wants to be considered a normal guy with a special social status. He needs the latest BMW, the most luxurious house, the most good-looking women around him. A "cocalar" is a cancerous social cell of poverty and lack of education, gathered into a superficial pile of flash that cries over attention, a flesh that has no self-perception and no self-awareness of its being a sample of DNA whatsoever. Can one even talk to a "cocalar" without being deceived by him? It's hard to say...but let's be tolerant and love the "cocalar" for what he can do for us, the "mortals" that waste their time criticizing, thinking and...may we be excused...writing...