cool Paper - rough draft

Cool is a mask we wrap around ourselves that hides our true self so that it is easier to fool people that we fit in. It is a charade that gets played over and over again. And the person is always hoping that they will not be discovered, that the audience will sit and watch and not try to rip apart the facade created by the performer to reveal the many characters. We have become products of ourselves. We choose to transform our selves into this image of cool. The only trouble is that cool is forever changing and means something different to each group and person. The definition is as forever changing as the wind. So to keep up with the constant shift, many roles and acts are played through out our lifetime. “And one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages” (Shakespeare). But why do we need these masks? Why bother trying to be cool and to fit certain aspects of what society wants us to be? This can be contributed to the fact that we try to cover up the hole we feel inside of us. We are all a little bit empty inside and instead of acknowledging this fact we try to fill the void (our lives) with meaningless attributes. People plays roles to fit in, fitting in to become cool, cool gets us attention and all play as distractions from what is really missing in our lives.



Is being cool different then being independent? Often times when you think of someone who is cool they have the latest and newest stuff, which is popular and thus making him/ her cool. So in another way it can also be said that being cool is just another way of conforming. But today there are many people who change themselves just to fit that persona of being cool and often not trying to be cool is revered as being cool. Now the definition of cool in the dictionary is "fashionable and attractive at the time; often skilled or socially adept". To get this persona, people not only put on acts but change their physical appearances. Many people always change their style to fit in and be cool. One such method is hair. There are so many “cool” hairstyles and certain codes for each gender and group. “Hair is a powerful symbol of individuality and group identity. Hair is physical, therefore personal although personal it is public”(Anthony Synnot). The article Hair- Shame and Glory also talks about the theory of hair.
The theory of hair can be called the theory of opposites.
1. opposite sexes have opposite hair
2. head hair and body hair are opposite
3. opposite ideologies have opposite hair
For men it is more popular and cool to have short hair where for women longer hair is better and seen as sexier. Head vs. body hair is also different between genders, for women more hair on her head and less hair on her body are seen as cool where as men have less hair on their head and more on their body. Hair is the most easily thing to change about yourself. It’s not permanent and can easily grow back to change when a new style is cooler then the old one.

Recently getting a tattoo has become a popular thing to do. It’s an unspoken cool. Today there aren't just the regular ink and needles it has even grown to henna tattoos. It’s become so popular down at the beach and board walks to see henna places set up and tons of girls giggling around all the designs to choose which one they would like. It’s an alternative to the regular tattoo. The big thing about henna is that its natural dye. Its not chemically made and wont affect the body too much. "Henna has been used to adorn young women's bodies as part of social and holiday celebrations". Brides also wear henna; it is supposed to bring luck and joy. Many traditions involve henna and we have turned it into something our culture uses to make a profit off.

(Most parents today would not allow their children to get a tattoo. My friend Jacara has decided to get a tattoo when she turns 18. I think the reason behind it is because when we turn 18 we are legal adults and her mother could not argue or tell her not to get it. Or at least she would not have to listen. But she said she wants a thin circle on her wrist which represented a cycle, something never ending. It seems meaningful to her and I have noticed her attraction to them in the past but I was surprised to hear she was actually going through with it. When we are young we want things that will make us cool. Getting a tattoo is a way in which we own our own body; we choose what to put onto it. Though as those kids grow older they start to regret ever getting one. The only ones that I can see as a mistake are when boyfriends or girlfriends get the name of their significant other and when it turns out they were wrong for each other and break up, they're left with a constant reminder. But there are also the tattoos of lost loved ones, picture and names. These show a persons past and history.) –Not sure if it’s needed

We all act in plays, putting in shadow our real life story. Perhaps tattoos are a way to show our story without actually breaking out of the role we set up for ourselves. Tattoos are usually meaningful to a person and have great significance. They want to never forget so they decide to keep it with them at all times. Mr. Fanning has many tattoos that cover both his arms. He says they were his armor when he first got it, but over the years they became less like his armor and more like his map of life. Those tattoos showed his life story, where he has been, who he was so that he can always keep it with him.


"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;..."( Shakespeare). People take up roles that are specific with other people and certain experiences. It’s 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. Everyone is playing a role, for the better part of their lives. Other people may not be characters but they are certainly following roles to make themselves cool.
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 ways 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 cannot 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. How does changing into the cool affect them as people? Our society or social groups put a lot on being cool and many kids and even grownups have been pulled into the frenzy of trying to be 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. It is 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. 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 emotions 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 can be connected to being lonely. When you are lonely it is the same as emptiness. There's nothing there, you’re 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.

Zeno founded stoicism in Athens. 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 reason so one can find inner calm and clear judgment.
"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 behavior and determine where they have diverged from the universal reason of nature."
Stoicism can be connected with the book 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 someone’s 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 judgment 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. 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 mother’s 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 whirlwind 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.


Many teens feel empty. They feel that they need to be cool so that they can get attention and be liked by people. This way, they will do anything to become cool and one way is to buy products that will let them achieve that status. 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). 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, "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 that 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 there advertisements circle around the most important thing in every teens life, cool. Every teen wants to be cool but of course it’s 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.
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 probably is 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 that 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. (Merchants of cool)




Cool consists of either many minor or major changes in a person’s life, whether it is physical or just how they act. As there are many variations of cool these definitions have many more places where they fit in such as certain groups may think something is cool while other groups may agree and other groups will disagree. Growing up in our society and living in many different groups such as family, friends, school, work, etc. there are many variations that one person may have on what is cool. Being cool is to fit in. If you want to be in a particular group or you want your friends to give you attention and you want them to think you're cool then you will most likely give into their perception of cool is. Forsaking any other moral training you might have learned and embodying the new cool. Most of the time the group cool and society's cool go hand in hand. Society has always been behind the shadows when giving us subliminal messages on what is cool and how we should act to be cool. Of course there are many versions that get put out according to all the marketing teams competing for our business. But often times our maps are written by the very same hand that runs everything from the back. We may know this and often think that perhaps this road may not be the very best and when we compare maps and they are similar or not the same but we want them to match up we go out of our way and disregard the old maps to try to fit in better with our peers and our culture.

But how can we choose something different for us if everything has already been mapped out for us? Is it so easy to just throw way your map and get a new one, or do we need to find hidden roads which slowly but surely lead us into a different path that will wind up being better for us or what is said in a different culture. So often we confuse these footpaths and swear they lead in directions they really don't go to. Whether it’s for the girl who wants a tattoo because her best friend has one or it’s for the boy who wants expensive shoes to fit in with his friends. We trick our maps to lead in these directions or forge our own roads to lead us into the conclusion we want. And often these tiny expeditions are because we have set out to become cool. And often the very idea of cool is those who have set out to create new maps for themselves. It’s something new and unexpected. No one really thinks to question the ideas that have been dominant for over centuries. But those who do and go out and create new maps are looked up to as someone who takes risks and that appeals to the cool variation of being a rebel. But often times we ourselves would look on in wonderment but never think twice about the hand we are dealt. We go on with our lives and often check to make sure it leads to where we want to go but other then that we leave it well alone.


Start of conclusion, not really formulated yet.
Jakob said that we identify people as cool because we project our insecurities on to them.

Rachel and me 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.