Cool Paper "Done" Draft [HW #37]

Introduction:
“Every yes means at least one no.” For most of us, regardless of our confessions, we say yes to cool. But what exactly are we saying ‘no’ to? Unlike our default preferences, such sacrifices aren’t as obvious, or visual. Although not observable through the eye, there is a price for this lottery ticket with cool being the jackpot. Not all of us can win, but all of us pay that price. Our attempts at being cool comes is at the expense of our connections with the world around us. More specifically, coolness alienates: our bodies from our minds & our minds from our bodies, us from our loose grip on life, and us from our chances of even acknowledging the possibility of a life beyond the roles.

Background Info:
“Whichever way you spell it, it’s as well to remember the word cool is not merely another way of saying ‘good.’ It comes with baggage- an alternative set of values which are often profoundly in conflict with official valaues” (Pountain and Robins)

There are different paths towards coolness. Within every different culture, there are different perceptions of cool. Cool isn’t about being popular, nor is it about having mainstream values or your pants on the ground. It’s about the role we play that will most likely give us status and a label within our sub-worlds. Whatever that role is, it derives from both nature and nurture- both our biological structures and our environments. We define “success” based on the stories that we hear and/or witness. However, there are also the innate factors that push us, those who are given the options, towards certain paths, simply because of the convenience (e.g. tall person and playing basketball). Having this coalesce that forms our ideas of “cool,” we project this idea through our identities. And thus our interpretations of cool become interpretation of how we should live our lives.

Argument #1: Separation of Body and Identity
In our attempts at being cool, we alienate our bodies from our identities- mind from body, and body from mind. It is as though, the mind and the body are two separate entities. And when we think of ourselves, we identify that as our minds- the one that dominates the body. The coolness that we perceive is based on what we think. The body is merely an accessory- a template which we adorn to reflect our perceptions of cool. Rather than being who we are, our bodies are a projection of who we are, which apparently is our minds.

If our minds are our identities, the essence of our being, then our bodies would be the canvas on which we paint on. Our bodies are seen as representatives of our beings, rather than our beings. We specifically alter our bodies so that it can reflect our interest in whatever culture or fashion. We cover ourselves with different ornaments to match our sense of coolness, and how it’s usually represented by outside sources. As many of us have noticed, there has been a recent hype on clothing that accentuates the exact shape of your legs, and glasses that mystify your eyes and eyebrows. Blame is not necessary, but it does appear that such fashion originated from hip-hop artists, specifically Kanye West. The fashion that the mind interprets becomes the form of the body. Although both the mind and the body changes according to our interpretations, the two are separate. The adjustments that the mind makes are seen as who we are, or simply how we think, whereas the body is just our way of telling everyone else who we are.

Show, don't tell"- this is what we've been taught; this is what we do. Throughout our lives, we project various aspects of our identity to the world. Tattoos are just one of those methods of projection. Rather than going around saying, "I think _____ is cool! I think _____ is cool!..." (which would seem desperate, and therefore uncool), people get tattoos to portray that. Tattoos signify to other people- give hints about what the hosts' preferences are, without telling the whole story. Tattoos make out bodies more convenient of selling ourselves out. With a tattoo(s), we are able to constantly project our identities in one of the most obvious ways. Tattoos show what we think is cool, but more importantly they show what's in our packages. It sends out signals about the culture- the "tribe" that he or she is a part of. As John Fanning said, people (at least, he) get tattoos to "be in that world", whatever that world is. The tattoos are not only a signifier of what world you're in, but, in some cases, your ticket into that world as well. Just as farmers give brandings to their cows to mark their ownerships, certain cultures do the same with people using tattoos. Rather than saying "I am into this kind of stuff," it's more like the tattoos are saying, "Property of this kind of stuff." In attempt to be cool, and show that we are cool, we alienate our bodies from ourselves, in that it is merely an accessory to us- something that we decorate on to send out the best signal.

Aside from playing dress up with our bodies, and getting inked, we also alter our hair. In order to play our roles, mostly gender roles, we change our hair accordingly. And once again, this part of our bodies becomes just a signifier for who we are. “Hair is hair is hair? Not exactly. It is also a powerful symbol of self” (Synott, 122). For most of us, our bodies do not define who we are. Instead, who we are, which is often perceived as the mind/brain, defines our bodies. We would not look at someone and think, “Person with long hair,” we think “girl,” and the long hair would just be supporting evidence that she is, in fact a girl. “Opposite ideologies have opposite hair. Hair is not only a sex symbol, it is also an ideological symbol. Opposition to conventional sex roles, to conventional definitions of femininity and to the conventional norms for a women and men is therefore often expressed in opposition to conventional hair norms” (Synott, 115). Hair, like other parts of our bodies, adjusts according to our identities, and our ideas of appropriate roles and coolness. The two do no coincide, instead they body follows the mind. It would appear that the body is dominated by the mind, even though it takes both to define our identities. However, since we are human, intelligent beings that rose above the animal level, we classify ourselves by our advantage- our brains. Therefore, if we were to identify ourselves based on our bodies, (aside from seeming superficial) it would be like we are “degrading” ourselves back to that level. And so, our minds become our identities, that dominate our bodies- our connection with the other animals.

Argument #2: Grasp on Life
Trying to be cool and reenact the previous success stories that we’ve interpreted, we follow these maps throughout our lives. For all of us, if not most of us, we were told that wealth and intelligence are the ultimate goals in life. Therefore, all of us go to school and try to do well, so that maybe one day, we’ll obtain both trophies. Whatever our ideas of cool are, we try to achieve that in order to create importance for ourselves. Trying to gain this status, we follow a strict path that leads to the desired results.

“Teens are like Africa” (Merchants of Cool). Our lives have become another colony for the coolness to take control of. We can all say that we are our own person, and that our lives are in our own hands. However, our desire for cool and status forfeits that control. We process whatever is given to us in our surroundings, mostly the media. Although it may be impossible, we never try to achieve originality. Our only goal is to fool ourselves enough to appear original amongst the people around us, while imitating an experience. Through this imitation, we are alienated from our control on life, because we are living by a map that has been roughly set out for us.


“Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will” (Jawaharlal Nehru). Even with our free will, there are is a limited amount of combination that we can play the cards by. And there would be, of course, an inclination towards one specific combination for every person. That inclination is a result of both the person’s nature and nurture. However, once the person is on one path, we are to follow that road. We do not create their own roads, we only follow the ones that have already been laid out. As it has been said in class, many of us want to create our own stories- stories that are not only significant, but allow us to be the heroes. But the fact is that we aren’t creating our own stories, we’re only reenacting stories that have already been told. By being admitted to the cool game, which we are before we’re even born, we are to live a certain life- a life that best corresponds with the environment you are in, and the life that will most likely give you recognition. Regardless of what that life specifically is, it is and never was our choice. We let the idea of cool dictate the way we live.

Coolness not only controls our overall goal in life, but it also influences every action that we take. As part of the roles, it is expected that the characters perform a certain way. In order to make it believable that our roles and identities are truly one in the same, we act and do things that the role would do. “We shall not concern ourselves too deeply with this question here, leaving that pleasure for others. Rather we intend to take on unfashionably naïve approach by simply accepted. Cool as a phenomenon that we can recognize when we see it from its effects in human behavior and cultural artifacts- in speech and dance, films and television shows, books and magazines, music, clothes, paintings, cars, computers or motorcycles (Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude). Our identities are portrayed through our actions; or rather our actions are dictated by the roles that we take on.


Argument #3: Escaping the Boxes
It is without a doubt that we play roles- roles that we consider significant or cool. And of course, playing those roles is a part of who we are; we can define ourselves based on the roles we play. However, by embracing these roles, and letting it completely consume our entire identities alienates us from looking past the roles, and seeing who we are at the core, without all the cool layerings. Although, it is highly improbable that our “cores” are any different from our layers, and that the roles we play are the cores of our cores, we are forfeiting consideration for any alternative. By acting cool, we are trapped in this cycle of constantly hopping from one role to another, never acknowledging if there’s even anything past the perimeter.

According to Buddhism, our lives are like cups. If it is not filled with a solid or a liquid- something visible, we believe that it is empty. But in fact, the cup is never empty. There are still particles that hold a place in the cup, regardless of how apparent that is. However, living in a predominantly superficial world, where merit only exists when it can be instantly perceived, we need some sort of signifier to believe that our cups are full. "The cup exists, but like everything in this world, its existence depends on other phenomena." We only (think we) know what we perceive. Viktor Frankl's metaphor of the existential vacuum says that: "If meaning is what we desire, then meaninglessness is a hole, an emptiness, in our lives. Whenever you have a vacuum, of course, things rush in to fill it." I agree, in that there is some sort of socket in our lives that needs to be filled. However, we do not live our lives as a vacuum, collecting dirt to fulfill that need. Going back to Buddhism, the nothingness does not even exist. We do not need nor do we fill our lives, because it's already filled. We're just not acknowledging or appreciating the moments, because we're so caught up in making them special, or valuable. We coat the moments that we already have in our lives by being cool. When you're cool, and you do cool things, your life becomes note-worthy. By winning over other people's approval, you can see how valuable your life is. It's not that we're gaining meaningful experiences, but it's that we're reconstructing those experiences in our lives so that they're observable. This need to be significant, and thus cool, draws us away from having an alternative life. All of us go through life, trying to appear significant, but we’re not actually gaining any significance.

Not being able to look beyond the roles, if there is anything beyond the roles, we continue living our cool lives. Rather than being concerned about evaluating the roles that we play, most of us are just concerned about the next step to take towards coolness, and any new roles that we would be interested in taking on. We continue to delude ourselves in these characters that we perform. By playing this cool game, we lose sight of the possibility that there might be something more. And although, there might not be, we’re still taking away any consideration of that chance.

Connection:
Kazuo Ishiguro portrays our obsession of cool in Never Let Me Go. The donors in this book are encouraged to create works of art, ones that are worthy to go in the gallery. Being that their (as well as ours) fate is to die, they want to have these art pieces as proofs of their existence. In a similar manner, we want to have these "immortality projects" to prove that we matter. And trying to act cool, and drawing attention from others is one of our methods. But just as the characters are passively living their lives by trying to act cool, so are we. For the most part, both the characters in Never Let Me Go and the people in our society, we are caught up in making our significance apparent through acting cool, we fail to see the bigger picture. For them, it's pretending to be important to a certain teacher by having a fake pencil case gift, and neglecting that the purpose of their existence. For us, it's receiving ignorant comments while acting ignorant, and losing sight of our situation (this applies to Never Let Me Go as well). Both the characters in Never Let Me Go, and our world blindly live their lives. And although, there is a great deal of despair lying ahead, we choose to neglect that. Instead, we continue on, living disconnected with all these aspects of life.

Alternative POV:
We aren't alienated, in the sense that we are now more aware of our identities. We are constantly shaping it- molding it so it becomes more appealing. For instance, we keep ourselves in shape, adorn ourselves so that it matches our perception of cool. Our desire to be cool provides us with the desire to maintain ourselves, mentally and physically. Although, our bodies are perceived as less significant, in terms of our identities when placed side-by-side with our minds, we still give it attention. Coolness has brought us closer to our bodies, in the sense that we are constantly refining it for the sake of status.

Although the road we follow has been set out for us, we can still, however, make turns and follow different roads throughout our lives. We still have the ability to choose the character we want to play (with the guidance of your environment). But we are not all set to one role and one role only. We can change courses throughout our lives.

Contrary to my argument #3, we may not really be alienated from our chances of escaping our roles. That is because the chances might not even exist. As Carrie said in her comment for my rough draft: “Isn't the attempt to not play a role a role in itself? Even trying not to be cool has its own label. Is it possible to not strive to not strive for a role… and to be completely oblivious of your own role and place in society?” Regardless of what we do, we are playing a role. Nearly everything throughout the entire spectrum constitutes as a role that is played. Playing roles is inevitable, and inescapable. We can say and hope that we have a true self, but chances are, we’re pretty much there.

Significance/Conclusion:
By being aware that being cool comes at a cost, we might start reconsidering our lifestyles. And although we may or may not be able to escape these roles that we play, we can still question the importance of these roles. If we see that it breaks our connections with our bodies, our hold on life and the scope at which we look at life. Acknowledging these alienation does not necessarily mean that we have to change anything (because, there’s probably nothing we can change). It rids us from our delusions. We can now live our lives, knowing what we do, aware of the sacrifices that we’re making as less ignorant actors.

Works Cited:
- Boeree , George. "Viktor Frankl." WebSpace < http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/frankl.html >

- Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. NY, NY: Vintage International, 2005. 288. Print.

- Pountain, Dick and Robins, David. Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude. FOCI. 2000.

- Synott, Anthony. The Body Social Symbolism, Self and Society. Routeledge. NYC. 1993.

- Frontline: The Merchants of Cool. PBS Online, 2001. Web. 7 Feb. 2005

- "Emptiness is Form." Big View (2006): n. pag. Web. 25 Jan 2010.< http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html >