Exploration of Cool- HW 23

I would guess the definition of cool is being accepted and well liked by the majority of the people in your life. Which sounds sort of a lot like popularity. So I wonder, is being cool the same as being popular? I think it is possible for someone to be cool but not popular, they are cool but not many people are aware of it. And it is also possible that someone is popular but not very cool at all, it is just that a lot of people know them. But I think in our society this distinction is not very defined. Depending on where one conforms to, different people find different things "cool," so the definition changes from group to group. I thing the general view of cool, is someone who is confident, attractive, athletic, and assertive. Thus, the quiet and insecure people remain "uncool."

I think the concept of cool is kind of a double standard. "The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care"- Hugh Macleod. So you can either be cool and have lots of friends but be bored all the time because of the stereotypical and materialistic routine you go by or you can be alone but have some sort of meaning in your life.

In our society, we are all trying to reach "cool." We all want acceptance so we don't feel alone, and according to Macleod's quote, we all would rather be bored than alone. "I kept buying these things to be cool, but cool was always flying just ahead of me, and I could never exactly catch up to it. I felt like I'd been running toward it for a long time."(279) M. T. Anderson. This makes me wonder, is it worth being cool if it forces you to have a meaningless life? Is it possible to be cool and have a meaningful life? We are constantly waiting for the approval of others in everything we do but does that really make us happy? or just content and satisfied?

Today in class we determined several of the main aspects that make a person "cool." Some of the most interesting ones or the "coolest" ones I thought were careless, talents/passions, "living the dream," independence but still connection with people, heroic, organic, and attention. In the stories we came up with today, most of the characters were cool but were natural careless about it.

In our story in particular, the two main characters had talents, one liked to write and the other was into music and we thought that was cool. We also find it cool when someone is thriving to do what they want, they have something going on in their life. Also referring to our story, the main girl was independent because she had to be separated from the guy she was with but it was still cool that they kept in contact with each other.

Heroism is also interesting I thought because its cool in the movies but I don't think we really see it that much on our every day lives, everyone just seems to be everybody for themselves. Finally, cool people have to grab your attention. I think we all have these subconscious ideas in our heads and we try to fit the criteria of "cool" without even realizing it. We try to fit in based on what we see other people doing, then wait for the approval of others, and decide what to do next based on that. This seems to be the cycle of achieving coolness.