Exploring Methods of M,M,C,A and Aggrandizing the Self

After history class on Friday waiting for English class to begin, Lieb was standing against the wall talking with her friends. After a quick look at her, Carrie and I decided to ask her about her outfit. Coming into class wearing clothes that are fit for going out late and looking for a party. Once asked why she wears what she does, she responded "cause I want to". "If your gonna wear something then you might as well wear something that looks nice". Thinking back in class, this is the typical answer. People would never admit that they might actually be doing the things they do just because they want attention. They do it for themselves and the reactions they get are just icing on the cake. Though I did talk to her about how most people usually do it to be cool. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "I don't look to get attention when I wear what I wear, it just makes me feel nice". Though I think somewhere she is actually doing it for the compliments and attention. If your gonna wear something it should be something that is nice, well there are certain times that its true but high heels, revealing tops and makeup are not so much something you would think someone would wear to school. But it has been recently something that has become a walkway. Wear the latest style, dress nice, have nice makeup.

Reflecting on the list we made in class and how it pertains to our lives I was afraid to admit that I might actually be doing some of those things. Though I was relived that there was actually few things that I do that aggrandize myself but of course I can just be lying to myself. One thing that I think is typical for most people is what they wear. I find myself thinking about what I might wear and not necessarily because I want to be cool (at least not the main reason) but just cause I feel comfortable in it and it is held with respect in manner of my friends. Only recently have I started to wear skinny jeans, and for me now they are comfortable but I would never have pictured myself wearing them. I still do wear jeans with flare on the bottom but not as much. I would say thats the only thing I do thats like conforming. I see the girls around me always wearing and applying makeup every period. I can say when I do wear makeup I feel pretty and see myself that way but I would not wear it on a regular basis. For me if I ever start that would be a wake up call. Like um Kate, what are you doing? Your not that type of person.
"All the world's a stage ..." Shakespeare. This is definitely true in my case. Something that I do to make myself seem cool or to aggrandize myself is to be a player on the stage. I take up roles that are specific with different people and certain experiences. Its all a game in a sense. People don't question it as long as you fit the "role" and make sure to not point out the manner in which they make themselves seem cool but to perhaps make subtle comments about it that boast their ego. Its easy for me to put on a mask and go through my life as a character. Its not like they are not false as well. They may not be characters but they are certainly following roles to make themselves cool. I do not know if I do it to be cool. I perhaps do it to fit in if there is even a difference. In a way it makes life a lot easier.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The way we go about our lives truly make them meaningless. All these ways we make ourselves seem better are nothing but lies that we are cloaking ourselves in. These lies seep into the soul where with most of them we excuse our behavior as "we do it cause we want to". Now you can not completely argue that some people are not in it for the association/ label. They do it for themselves and do not really care what people think of them. In certain aspects I would like to believe I fit in there somewhere. To my hobbies and taste in clothes, sports and etc.

Psychological and Philosophical Theorizing of Cool

Emptiness is a feeling in which many people will experience in their lives. It is not something that can easily be defined. Some often describe it as a black hole, where the void is filled with our own darkness. Its a sense that comes from our illusion of missing something we feel we need. There are often times people disregard the hole and find meaningless ways to cover or fill the hole so it does not sallow us whole. I feel like emptiness is never in one part of the body but encompasses the whole being. It is a destructive emotion in which clouds the senses. It is no more attainable through our emotions then it is to say we are happy. Two of the very same emotion on opposite scales of the spectrum. Emptiness swallows all else and leaves nothing but a feeling of having something missing. There is no happiness or anger, its just one sense that I would connect to being lonely. When you are lonely I feel like it is the same as emptiness. There's nothing there, your all alone with no one near you and it can be the same as emptiness. Although emptiness can be seen as one emotionless pit. Most people do not directly face the problem. They leave the hole in the back of their mind behind closed doors, and after a while they become afraid of what might have been created in the time they left it there.

Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno. Stoicism considers destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment. They believe that a sage ("moral and intellectual perfection") would not experience these emotions. Stoics belief was that it is highly important to maintain a will in accord with nature. Stoics view that only a sage is free from such emotions and trivial ways of life. This philosophy helps develop self control over destructive emotions. "The philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason". Unlike many people think Stoic does not teach to abandon all emotions but to transform them into into reason so one can find inner calm and clear judgement.
"Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason which would lead to the conclusion of kindness. If they are unhappy, it is because they have forgotten how nature actually functions — unhappiness is having one's unrealistic expectations of reality go unfulfilled. The solution to evil and unhappiness then, is the practice of Stoic philosophy — to examine one's own judgments and behaviour and determine where they have diverged from the universal reason of nature."
After reading this passage I ultimately thought of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. In the book Coelho held some of the same philosophies as Stoicism. They both believed in the universal language and the fact that everything was connected. There was also the soul of the world in which the young boy Santiago was able to understand by the end of his journey. This can connect with their argument of nature. Nature plays a big part in being free in the sense of not being controlled by our emotions. Santiago on his journey meets many people along with a King, a Crystal merchant, an Englishman, and the Alchemist. They all play a role in helping the boy discover his personal legend. The king helps him on his journey by explaining that he must follow his personal legend and that everything will help him accomplish his true goal. After being robbed he works in the crystal shop and decides to go back home. But after talking to the store owner about his decision the boy realizes that he is even closer to his legend and that there was nothing really stopping him from going. The Englishman and the Alchemist helped the boy realize that he had the power all along to get to his goal and that he could already read the soul of the world. After the book I wondered if it was some people's personal legend to never find there's but instead to be stones on the path of someones quest to find theirs. Emptiness was present but the boy after reading the soul of the world and listening to his heart was able to over come it. Just like the Stoics believed you needed to overcome such emotions with reason to find clear judgement and inner calm. Both the boy succeeded in.

Another book which plays into this sense of emptiness and explores many existential themes but also Stoicism is The Stranger by Albert Camus. Though unlike the boy in The Alchemist, Meursualt did not find his inner peace in the same way and some can even ague he that he never found it. Meursualt's life was fully of emptiness and he came off to others as uncaring and indifferent. This causes him to be disliked by many people and the reason why he was convicted of the murder of the Arab. Though during the trial, his mothers death was brought up and the lack of grief from him. They could not understand how a son could have no reaction to his mothers death. This can be seen as the biggest factor in why they thought Meursualt was guilty of the crime even though both incidents were totally separate. At the end Meursault finally explodes into a whirl wind of emotion. He starts screaming out and tries to understand the world and his emotions. When he is done and everything is quiet again he realizes that he was right all along, the world was as cold and as uncaring as he so why should he have lived any differently then he had. Coming up with his resolution, Meursualt is finally at peace and is content with his death not afraid of his end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Stranger by Albert Camus

Merchants of being Cool

There are even more teenagers then their baby boomer parents. These teens control 150 billion dollars and many corporations are happy to give them a market in which they can buy their products. Corporations are "colonizing" teens and one even said that "teens are like Africa". We are the main business in which many corporations feed off of us. Some have even got into hiring people to find out what's cool but even find out what is going to be cool so they can rush it into the stores and create cool before it was even popular the only problem is that as soon as you discover something that is cool, its dead. Sprite even did this by trying to do anti-ads to appeal to teens who feel like corporations are just trying to sell them things. Sprite said "hip-hop became the vehicle for us" when talking about staying popular with teenagers. Many corporations are feeding on what we think is cool and are selling it back to us. By giving teens a say in what we think is cool and should be the new consumer product they are hooking us by giving us power. We have the illusion of control but we are really just being fooled by forgetting that our free choice was just the other one that was presented.

Teens witness 3,000 discrete advertisements a day. They also have a lot of money in their pockets and are more then willing to spend, which is every corporations dream. Many naive teenagers ready and waiting to find things that they can buy. Corporations knowing this find ways to appeal to this generation. One main way corporations get teenagers to buy products is that their advertisements circle around the most important thing in every teens life, cool. Every teen wants to be cool but of course its not cool to go and actively say yea i want to be cool, it has to be on the sly. Corporations give them this chance as they sell things that they think will become cool so that kids go out and start buying them making the product itself cool. Most of the money teens acquire is from guilt money, parents can't spend time with them so they give them money to go shop (fill the void with materialistic items).

So why should we care that the corporations are using us and that our overall sense of wanting to feel important is driving us to spend? Most teenagers don't care and the even greater majority are probably not even aware of anything that is going on in corporate spending and consumer goods. All they care about is making sure that there overall desire of wanting to be cool and feeling important is met. Often times its not and in accordance to this, many teenagers go out and buy products that they think will get them the attention in which they would not have otherwise. Corporations are feeding on this weakness and teens are more then willing to let them as long as they get something back in the process. Not saying it would not be hard to one less teen who is not influenced by advertisements they see in their everyday life. You can not avoid this part of our culture but knowing that it's there is a big step in which teens can focus on to stop their overall drive to be cool and spend money.

Informal research

"Cool (aesthetic)." Wikipedia. Web. .



Wikipedia goes into the various aspects of cool. Stating that "there is no one meaning of cool" the many aspects being described with cool are always in a constant change but there are a few broad categories in which most cool things fall into. They are cool as a behavioral characteristic, cool as a state of being,cool as aesthetic appeal. The timeline above shows when each thing become col not only in our culture but also Europe and Africa.

This article breaks cool down into more of a science where it is set to the standards that we as humans follow. Though in some parts the article could have expanded on coolness in different cultures. America and the Middle East had barely a paragraph where Europe and Africa had whole sections dedicated to them.

Rice, Jeff. "What is Cool? Notes on Intellectualism, Popular Culture, and Writing." CTHEORY. 10/05/2002. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

This website article discusses different magazines and their views on what cool is. Weird magazine's piece on "The Phenomenon of Cool." The writer states that cool cannot be defined but the magazine gives examples of what is cool. It is presented that how can we truly understand what is cool if cool means nothing and everything at the same time. Taking a closer look at some of the magazines advertisement's, many digital ads were put in just the first couple of pages. Cool has become a huge way to market such digital devices.

The article does not seem to answer the question, what is cool? I do agree when the article said that cool is an addiction. If someone goes out to get they would be sure to be back the next day for the same thing. The article is also only focused on technology. None of the other things you would think of when you think of what is cool. It goes into depth about what different sources have to say about digital representation in the media and how it is being symbolized as cool.

BUEHLER, DOYLE. "You're not cool - I am. What is cool & finding the cool factor.." Fast company. 28 jul 2008. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

In the article it is brought down to this formula of what makes someone cool: 5% aspiration + 95% self-perception + 10% public awareness + 46% individuality + 15% actions + 22% verbal + 99% what others think about you. Of course the author thinks of himself as cool and he argues that indeed we all think we ourselves are cool. He also mentions that cool has all to do with our own individual world. Everyone has different perspectives on cool and it has all to do with our own worlds.

I like this article because it is like the author is talking with you. He gives examples and explains all his views which when you come to think of it is the typical response to what is cool. He gives many good insights and he does not say you have to agree with him. It was very interesting and very laid back compared to the two previous ones which was nice.

Home work 27

Street interviews:
Waiting for her friend, she leans against the mail box with impatient sighs. Wondering when he would get there. Coming up we asked if she would mind answering some questions while she waited. She said she did not mind and gave thoughtful answers. When asked what characteristics do people have if they are cool. She responded "people who go on a limb to help others out". She thought she was cool because she matched her earlier description, "I am cool because I volunteer, and don't ask for money back and I am passionate about public relations". She seemed very self confident in her description of her giving back to the community. She also brought up a perspective on the difference between males and females. She said "women would have the opinion that to give back to the community is good and that guy's would think that power and wealth is cool". Then as we were waiting around the bus stop to find people to talk to we saw a young guy walking by. Me and Rachel decided to go over and to try to ask questions. They guy said he was heading to class but that if we walked with him we could ask him questions. So walking along the street trying to keep up we hurry about asking questions and scribbling down the answers. When asked what his definition of cool was he said "it is a manufactured desire" I asked him to elaborate on his answer and he said it was "actually self explanatory" I left it at that. He also mentioned that we should read the book A noble writer sound of words by Wallace Stevens because it would give us some good pointers. After we concluded he continued his busy hustle towards his class.

Interview with my mom:

Do you think your cool? why or why not?
"I think I am very cool because I follow my own conscious and I think I am current with what is going on in the world, whether its political and cultural. I also have a open mind"

What do you think about cool in our society?
"I think cool is misunderstand. Cool from a society perspective is about thinking like everybody else and its not about individuality. I think its about being your self and havign the guts to be yourself"

What if the new definition of cool was to be yourself, would it be in a way another form of conforming?
"No, absolutely not. That would be a wonderful open society that embraces everyone"

What if it was someones nature to kill people?
"Well. That's not cool. That's destructive. That's hurting someone, against the law. Being cool is to not break the law."

Interviewed my friend Yan:

"I don't consider myself cool but I'm not sure what is my definition of cool is either."

Who would you say is cool?
" If I had to say who I think is cool it would be Obama. Some would say he is "too" cool. But Obama is one of those people who presents themselves with confidence and at times show very little emotions---for some reason this all gives off a "cool" on look."