Wednesday 21 March 2012

What does it mean to be cool?

The author argues that being cool, which originates from the idea of remaining calm even under stress that has eventually transformed into a practiced behavioral attitude by black people, means being a winner without trying too hard to win, without winning everything, and winning unpredictably. He also says living in a constant of alienation because you can't revel in total control or total detachment but have to bring forward unusual constellations of ideas and actions. Cool is a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion. The author is acting like a dick and making everything so complicated. He thinks he is damn smart.

The author has all his history of "cool" and all this useless bull-crap of his philosophy on what the heck it really means to be "cool," but I don't give a damn about his argument. He failed miserably in convincing, or at least getting his point straight, because it is annoyingly long and unnecessarily complex. I read the whole thing through, some sentences even several times if that's what it took me to see what he was saying, yet didn't quite understand what his actual message was. I don't blame myself because I could understand paragraphs from AP English exam. The only sentence I really got was the "paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion" that my English teacher so kindly explained in details. I do understand parts of the article but I don't see the whole point - the main argument; what he is trying to communicate through this. So what does it really mean to be cool? And after all, I think his definition of "cool" that the rest of the world uses and think of as, is extremely wrong. I disagree with him. Nevertheless, he succeeds in showing the example of "uncool."

Being cool basically means being awesome - being someone that others want to be like; being chill, funny, happy, yet powerful, thoughtful, deep, understanding, skillful, critical, solemn, etc. However, these are only the characteristics that I think are required for one to be cool. It depends on the individuals' thoughts and experiences that have developed their views of being cool. The views of the world, other people, and God. These are all the parts that contribute to building up the conclusion for oneself if something is cool or not. Not just about being cool, but for every single question in life. The answer depends on the education, experience, and mindset of each individual.

There is no one answer to the question, "what does it mean to be cool?" And the author is probably nor correct because his silly little philosophy can't beat the belief of majority. Has Darwin's theory of Evolution disproved God's creation of humans as humans? There still are majority that believe that God created humans as humans. Has the Big Bang theory changed people's belief of God's creation? No. As so, most people believe being cool has something to do with how amazingly one deals with certain situations. How so many people like him/her. How awesome he/she is. Not how you paradoxically submit and subverse. People already have developed their own idea of what it means to be cool. Everyone probably thinks slightly differently of cool, but the main idea would be something like "being cool = awesome."

To end with, the ultimate idea of "you" being cool, from my analysis and years of complicated calculations of treads of thoughtful thoughts and considerations, is when someone admits you are cool, despite all the disgusting human traits of ego, selfishness, desperation for attention, jealousy, hatred, etc. Then you know that you are really cool. Or, not giving a damn about it and living your life as it is and as yourself.


2 comments:

  1. haha, i'm almost certain this won't pass as a college essay :P

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  2. I agree with Dave, although you probably don't care because you are too cool!

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