The Importance of Being Cool

I have never been cool.

I’m even less cool now. I can look back on pictures of me at different parts of my life and see that there were times I was almost cool but never quite, and there were times I was exceptionally uncool. I think I fretted about it a bit when I was surrounded by people with that undefinable quality, in high school or in college, but now, I run from cool. 

Cool feels detached, uninterested, set aside or above. Cool feels lonely and judgmental. Also Mean Girls long ago pointed out the pathetic impossibility of being a “cool mom.” There’s a time for that youthful definition of cool, and it’s before the age of 35. (I mean, maybe. But what do I know? I’ve never been cool.) 

A redefinition could be helpful though. I say things are cool all the time, usually in reference to things my kids are doing. “Mom, we read a new book in class today!” “So cool! Tell me about it!” But that obviously isn’t cool like leather jackets and listening to vinyl records while smoking clove cigarettes. For example. 

I want to be interested in things. I want my kids to be interested in things and to be willing to seek out new experiences without fear. I think that’s cool. I might be getting caught up in the semantics of this word, but being a parent has changed it entirely. There’s a side of cool I fear now, and it’s that detached, disinterested side. The self-centered version of cool that’s afraid to be vulnerable and wears a facade at all times. I’ve long since put that aside for myself. There’s no acting. I like what I like and am who I am. I still really want everyone to like me, I guess, but I finally grew up enough to not bend over backwards for people who don’t. 

I read an Atlantic article a while back about resistance being cringe and how surprised the author was that being genuine and honest about one’s feelings was actually effective. God, if feeling strongly about something and acting upon those feelings is cringe, I was never made for cool. And also maybe trying so hard to be cool and worrying about what others thought of us is what got us here - here being under the rule of a fail-son would-be dictator who is losing his mind and faculties before our very eyes but is still beloved by a sizeable part of the nation - in the first place. 

Alright, fine. I recognize that idealism can be naive. A big protest on a Saturday isn’t going to fix everything. Big protests every Saturday won’t even fix everything. But those protests allow people to get together in community, to organize, to feel more hopeful to continue taking action. A little idealism with a tinge of realism, no matter how cringe (ugh, just shut up, Atlantic - that word pisses me off) it seems, magnified by thousands and millions, is how change happens. If everyone stays home, worrying about being cool, the orange man wins. This insane ruling party that still calls itself Republican wants everyone looking around at each other, worried. Or worse, they want you looking down on those below you, worrying about keeping others down. 

An awesome guy whose newsletter I love, Garrett Bucks, wrote about this whole cool thing recently. I was overjoyed to read his essay. It echos so many of the things I feel: that being cool and aloof isn’t a path to community, that the idea of caring being cringe is dumb (my words), that being an idealist is ok if you’re willing to work through all of the non-ideal phases (and they’re all non-ideal phases).

We can be genuine, can’t we? Can’t we take care of our neighbors and invest in our communities, whatever form that takes? Taking part in community events probably isn’t that cool, but being surrounded by people who care about each other feels good in a way that being cool never does and never has. My assumption is that cool people seek adoration from those they deem to be below them. And I just don’t have time for that anymore. 

So please, stop worrying about being cool. Stop trying for it. Like what you like and love who you love. Please tell me about your nerdy hobby. I will like it, or I will enjoy hearing what you like about it. And surround yourself with people who want to hear about your nerdy hobbies. Obviously, ask about and listen to their nerdy hobbies too because that's part of being genuine in community.

When I was 8, I went to Take Your Child to Work Day with my dad. He worked in the research division of a steel plant in East Chicago. We got hard hats and got to walk through the plant and see the glowing steel moving through the mile-long pouring and rolling process. It was exceptionally cool. But that part happened after we listened to an extremely boring talk by a woman who was in charge of something or other. Again, I was 8. But she was not a magnetic speaker. There was a line from her speech that I can still hear ringing out in that auditorium (unsure why a steel plant had an auditorium): "Be bored, and you will be boring. Be interested, and you will be interesting." Others have said it. She probably cited her source in that speech she gave 33 years ago. But I hear it in her voice. I hear it repeating, "Be bored, and you will be boring. Be interested, and you will be interesting."

I don't want disinterested. I don't care about cool. Let's be interested. Let's be interesting. Let's share and hear each other and really listen.