Cool Paper Rough Draft [HW #35]

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:
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.

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.

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.