Sometimes my kids ask me questions that rattle my mind like a cold, brass church bell. My skull had only just stopped reverberating from their last confounding query (“Mom, what does nothing look like?”) when my teenager riddled me this: “Why don’t old people at least try to be cool?”
It was an honest question, and it struck me as kind of brilliant — in the way that one often chooses to focus on her children’s refreshing curiosity rather than dwell on their astounding lack of manners or perspective.
I considered telling him that the answer lies in simple physics: Cool is a fast-moving target. And old people are slow. Then it occurred to me that by “old people,” he might very well mean me. I needed more information.
“If they would just put on a pair of skinny jeans and a V-neck T-shirt,” my son said, “they’d be cool.”
“According to whom?” I asked, cautiously. The parenting books say that active listening encourages your kids to speak openly. They also say it’s bad to call them idiots. So I listened.
“According to us,” he said. “To my generation.”
“Well,” I offered, “it’s because we — er, they — don’t care what you think of them.”
“I know. That’s my point,” he countered. “Why don’t they?”
“Because it’s not worth any effort to them,” I retorted. “They see no value in earning your admiration. They don’t feel the need to seem cool to you.”
“But they could!” he insisted. “They could seem cool if they tried.”
It went round and round like this, him unable to fathom why anyone wouldn’t want to impress his inexperienced, judgmental, and capricious peers — and me unable to recall why I had thought, for a brief moment, that his question was smart.
I sought advice from, ahem, old friends: “Remind me why old people don’t try to be cool.”
Their responses:
“Because when we do, it backfires. Look at Jon Gosselin.”
“Because our generation is still so freaking cool that adapting for his would be a compromise in quality.”
“Isn’t trying to be cool totally uncool?”
“But … I do try!”
And bingo, that did it. Their disparate comebacks reminded me of why I had thought my son’s inquiry so ingenious from the start: because it answers more questions than it poses.
Why don’t old people at least try to be cool? The question itself is a treatise on what it means to chase cool: The erroneous assumption that one group defines cool. Owns it. The faulty reasoning that another group wants a piece of it. Or is even aware of it. The mistaken belief that cool can be faked. Some day, when my son is old people, he’ll realize that cool isn’t the cut of your clothing (especially if your clothing is skinny jeans). But neither is it a “state of mind” or whatever nonsense we old people tell ourselves to feel better about being socially irrelevant. Cool is whatever you don’t have and can’t truly get; it’s the audacious style, enviable skill, and unorthodox outlook that’s just barely — but forever — out of your reach.
Eventually my kid will learn that cool is a punishing paradox: that chasing it is a fool’s errand because the damned thing won’t be caught, and if it could, it wouldn’t be worth having in the first place.
He’ll discover that it’s shifty and ephemeral, and that from birth to death, there’s not a single point on life’s continuum where you can get a clear, full-frontal view of cool — no vantage point that isn’t blocked by bias, shaded by age, or blurred by loyalty. He’ll understand, finally, that cool is a restless little bastard, a transitory trophy, a mirage in the desert.
And it will rattle his mind.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
I am an English teacher, and I have written a little about this sort of thing on my own OS blog.
Your son's question is indeed forthright and sincere--much like what I asked adults thirty years ago. Like your son, I framed my question using a vocabulary that reflects a mass-media sensibility and the idea that youth culture must be the primary concern of all people, young and old. How could it not be?
While my students may be remotely tempted to call me cool because I play rock and roll in a band with other educators in order to raise money for our school district's foundation, I consistently remind these young people that the last thing I am interested in being is cool.
The short story is that I grew up. I looked beyond pop music and movies and TV and video games, and I saw an entire realm of life in which the notion of cool was but one consideration in a multitude. I became a professional, and I emulated more experienced professionals who gave young people something to respect and admire--and who, in doing so, transcended and even obliterated "cool."
Each year, I ask students if the meaningful things in their lives--the death of a pet, their first kiss, the funeral of a loved one, the medal won at a piano recital, an aunt's wedding, holding an infant cousin, fishing with Grandpa, kissing Mom goodnight--are cool. They state that "cool" is not quite the word they would choose. Then begins a discussion they should have been having for years.
Better late than never.
I am thrilled to read a post on this topic. Well done!
"Cool is whatever you don’t have and can’t truly get; it’s the audacious style, enviable skill, and unorthodox outlook that’s just barely — but forever — out of your reach."
It's an interesting point of view, but it's completely defeatist. Cool is a state of mind, but more importantly, cool is a state of being. I bet your son would think, after getting to know me, that I was cool. In fact, the art of being cool isn't so much about how cool you are by showing others your "coolness" it's the ability to relate with people on their level and without creating that "divide" many of us older kids seem to relish in creating. You know what I mean, that whole, "we're older and so we're inherently superior" kind of thing.
Trust me, cool is attainable, but it comes to you, not the other way around.
And if your kids asks you about cool, you can tell them that a wise(ass) old owl told you the above.
--r--
Kids, ain't they great?
Great post!
Those musicians were crapped on because they were black. They got no respect because of their skin color all day. But when they played in nightclubs for whites very much like their oppressors - if not exactly like - they got praise. A lot of it sounded to them like praise for a dog that could do a clever trick.
What could they do? If they appreciated that praise, they'd be sanctioning their oppressors. If they turned it down, they'd lose their income and perhaps make their oppressors angry enough to lynch them. So they figured out a third way. They'd accept the praise, but calmly, unemotionally, as if it was nice but not that essential to them. They'd never get excited about anything. This behavior eventually was given the name "cool."
Sadly, the behavior was mis-adapted when whites began to be "cool." They adopted "cool" to mean that having a passion or caring about anything was wrong, was a way for someone else to get their hooks into you. Therefore, involvement in the world at all was more than unfashionable; it was deadly to you.
There used to be a fun, cynical magazine called Spy, which covered contemporary events with that kind of cynicism. It also transmitted some real knowledge along with the snark. However, in one of the last issues they produced, their editorial was entitled "Oh, Cool, Cool World." It was remarkably serious for Spy. They decided that being "cool" was an excuse to allow evil to occur, and its popularity among sophisticates was encouraging societal wrongs large and small. The article vowed that the magazine's editorial policy would avoid being "cool" and ended with the words, "Goodbye, cool world." Unfortunately, not long after, Spy ended.
But that message affected me deeply. I was never cool, ever, and I came to realize that cool people are basically jerks. Hopefully, knowing the history of "cool" and how it has been abused, some people out there will freaking stop it.
Having said that, I remember feeling a little pleased when a really square uncle ditched the baggy trousers with cuffs look for some trimmer, bland pastel pants. He didn't look hippie-ish but he no longer looked like a relic either.
As they say, Elegance is the revenge of the old on the young.
In just a few years your son will probably be rolling his eyes at kids the same age he is now who're trying so hard to be cool. It's not something you chase or put on like skinny jeans. As dunniteowl put it, "it's attainable but it comes to you, not the other way around." Cool usually takes time too; it's not for the insecure. So ironically, the coolest people are often old.
But I can relate to your son's attitude. My own kid feels that old people should have a curfew and only be allowed outside certain hours of the day.
I can tell you this, though: this post is really cool.
Lezlie
I haven't read all the comments yet, so forgive me if I'm repeating someone someone has already said.
To me, "cool" isn't doing what everyone else is doing or even wearing a certain type of clothing. "Cool" is not being afraid to be yourself. Doing something just because someone else does, or because someone else says it's cool, in my opinion is very un-cool.
I try to teach my children that the very best thing they can be, is themselves. That they don't need to feel pressured to buy something, look, or act a certain way just because someone else is doing it. People aren't meant to be sheep...we don't have enough fur. (well, maybe Robin Williams does, but most of us don't. lol)
-r
Rather than accuse you of being pedantic, however, I am more inclined to compliment you on bringing up that linguistic point, as it has relevance to the discussion, and I would like to have thought of it myself. Nice point.
Hilarious. Well written post.