Thermodynamic
Aug. 19th, 2008 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"Too clever is dumb."
- Ogden Nash
I remember in the early grades of elementary school, whenever the class went somewhere as a unit, certain individuals were selected as "line leaders," who would (naturally) lead the single-file line wherever it was going. I remember first wanting to be a line leader (perhaps because it offered the illusion of control, which is a very big thing for a little kid.) But after time, it started to be cooler to be at the end of the line (perhaps because it offered the illusion of freedom, which is an attractive thing for boys who want to pull pigtails and give wedgies.) Eventually this same "first-is-worst" dynamic manifested in the seating charts of the classroom and on the bus, and wherever I instinctively wanted to be seemed to be the place that the cool people were not.
In a fairly obvious way, and perhaps like most people, I long to be cool. But what is cool? Is it an abstract "I know it when I see it" kind of notion? Or is it a specific but mysterious mixture of certain elements? What would those elements be?
You have to have style, but not too much style. It should be effortless but not accidental, calculated but not overt, unique but not confrontational, casual without being sloppy and elegant without being formal. This is how the flat-brimmed baseball cap came back into fashion.
You have to have personality but not too much personality. The cool person speaks little but says a lot; there is an economy of thought and language, poetic in its execution. There should always be mystery. The aspiring cool person need only look to the iceberg, which moves purposefully yet gracefully and keeps 90 percent of its character obscured underwater. Icebergs are the coolest shit around.
You have to be wise, but it's a certain kind of wise. Nobel Laureates, Jeopardy! champions and Yoda need not necessarily apply. Cool requires a situational wisdom, akin to "street sense" but applicable also to other environments. It is this deep understanding of human nature that not only allows the cool person to be comfortable in any environment, but informs their sympathies, their integrity and their sense of humor. Wisdom is what makes grandparents cool and parents lame.
And you have to have the attitude, which is the most important element because it is beyond the subject's control. The proper attitude embodies the principle that there is an inverse relationship between being cool and wanting to be cool. Cool is irrelevant to the cool person. He or she must be must be uncomfortable with it, or uninterested in it, or possibly even unaware of it. It is very nearby to aloof, just next door to Zen. The Parisians have perfected it.
Whatever my bona fides for the first three elements, it is this last point upon which I unequivocally fail. The desire to be cool keeps me from being cool. The desire also prevents me from embracing my lack of cool, which would normally be pretty cool in a post-ironic sort of way. The recognition of this irony is cool, but the acknowledgement of it is not. To celebrate my awareness of my desire to be cool is sort of cool, but that coolness is uncoolified by the inherent self-pity. And to ignore the underlying cool desire is to be dishonest, which is totally uncool.
So I inevitably end up resenting things that are universally accepted as "cool," like avocado, New York City and the Garden State Soundtrack. It's almost as if I'm trying to invent a new alternative to cool, or hoping that I get to the point where cool catches up with me. I'm always on the crest of the latest backlash.
First in line again. So uncool.
- Ogden Nash
I remember in the early grades of elementary school, whenever the class went somewhere as a unit, certain individuals were selected as "line leaders," who would (naturally) lead the single-file line wherever it was going. I remember first wanting to be a line leader (perhaps because it offered the illusion of control, which is a very big thing for a little kid.) But after time, it started to be cooler to be at the end of the line (perhaps because it offered the illusion of freedom, which is an attractive thing for boys who want to pull pigtails and give wedgies.) Eventually this same "first-is-worst" dynamic manifested in the seating charts of the classroom and on the bus, and wherever I instinctively wanted to be seemed to be the place that the cool people were not.
In a fairly obvious way, and perhaps like most people, I long to be cool. But what is cool? Is it an abstract "I know it when I see it" kind of notion? Or is it a specific but mysterious mixture of certain elements? What would those elements be?
You have to have style, but not too much style. It should be effortless but not accidental, calculated but not overt, unique but not confrontational, casual without being sloppy and elegant without being formal. This is how the flat-brimmed baseball cap came back into fashion.
You have to have personality but not too much personality. The cool person speaks little but says a lot; there is an economy of thought and language, poetic in its execution. There should always be mystery. The aspiring cool person need only look to the iceberg, which moves purposefully yet gracefully and keeps 90 percent of its character obscured underwater. Icebergs are the coolest shit around.
You have to be wise, but it's a certain kind of wise. Nobel Laureates, Jeopardy! champions and Yoda need not necessarily apply. Cool requires a situational wisdom, akin to "street sense" but applicable also to other environments. It is this deep understanding of human nature that not only allows the cool person to be comfortable in any environment, but informs their sympathies, their integrity and their sense of humor. Wisdom is what makes grandparents cool and parents lame.
And you have to have the attitude, which is the most important element because it is beyond the subject's control. The proper attitude embodies the principle that there is an inverse relationship between being cool and wanting to be cool. Cool is irrelevant to the cool person. He or she must be must be uncomfortable with it, or uninterested in it, or possibly even unaware of it. It is very nearby to aloof, just next door to Zen. The Parisians have perfected it.
Whatever my bona fides for the first three elements, it is this last point upon which I unequivocally fail. The desire to be cool keeps me from being cool. The desire also prevents me from embracing my lack of cool, which would normally be pretty cool in a post-ironic sort of way. The recognition of this irony is cool, but the acknowledgement of it is not. To celebrate my awareness of my desire to be cool is sort of cool, but that coolness is uncoolified by the inherent self-pity. And to ignore the underlying cool desire is to be dishonest, which is totally uncool.
So I inevitably end up resenting things that are universally accepted as "cool," like avocado, New York City and the Garden State Soundtrack. It's almost as if I'm trying to invent a new alternative to cool, or hoping that I get to the point where cool catches up with me. I'm always on the crest of the latest backlash.
First in line again. So uncool.
