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The History of Cool
Hey, you know everybody wants
to be cool. We wanna look cool, have cool friends and do cool
things, but did you ever wonder where the term "cool"
came from? What does "cool" really mean?
Anyway, when I asked my history
teacher if I could do my term paper on "The History of
Cool", she kind of stared at me, rolled her eyes and
walked away. So rather than waste this very cool theory of
mine, I figure I'd share it with you.
The history of cool is like the
history of the bagel--everyone wants to claim they invented
it. So I figure my theory is as good as any.
As I see it, somewhere around
the Paleolithic Era (that's Stone Age for you illiterates),
the idea behind the word "cool" came into being.
I figure everyone was walking around wearing mammoth or bear
skin when this guy (let's call him "Grunt") appears
on the scene in leopard.
That was pretty cool, but as
we all know it takes more than clothes to make the man. As
a matter of fact some guy named "Ugh" showed up
the next day wearing prairie dog and he got his ass kicked
but good. Anyway, "Grunt" shows up the next night
while everyone is bashing their women over the heads with
clubs and dragging them hair-first. But no, not Grunt. Grunt
just struts up to the cutest babe in the cave and asks her
out on a date (the first recorded date in history). It was
so...so...civilized...so COOL!!
Throughout history cool has been
replaced with other words like "keen", "neat",
"groovy", "cat's pajamas" (weird, huh?),
but "cool" always comes back. "Cool" is
in and it's here to stay.
But my main point is this: What
we think cool is supposed to be is really the opposite of
what cool really is. For example, let's say you're about to
interview for a summer job with this computer firm (It's a
great in, as you aspire to becoming the greatest hacker the
world has ever known), but you're really uptight, someone
may say to you, "be cool".
Now you can't be cool, because
the guy who's gonna interview you is an overweight nerd from
some foreign country and he has acne and a severe stutter.
You're gonna be a total screw-up in this meeting because you
never hung out with any fat people, foreign students, nerds,
or kids with zits and speech problems--BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T
COOL ENOUGH FOR YOU.
Therefore, being cool must have
something to do with being comfortable with all kinds of people
in any given situation. The guy who's really cool can go anywhere
and fit in. But if you're only gonna hang out with the small
group of people who fit your definition of cool, then you're
gonna be a total washout in your professional, personal, and
social life. HOW UNCOOL CAN YOU GET?
My Mom is one of the coolest
people I know. She can walk into a Polish, Hassidic, Catholic
or Tibetan wedding and party all night. She's as comfortable
at a Private Tennis Club as she is at the local soup kitchen
- NOW THAT'S COOL!
CONCLUSION--You gotta open yourself
up to all kinds of people and all kinds of interesting opportunities
if you really want to be cool. Cause if you limit yourself
to some narrow definition of cool you're gonna end up a real
loser.
Like while you're spending all
this time pumping iron and fixing your hair in the coolest
style, the girl of your dreams is gonna end up with some fat
nerd with a foreign accent (maybe he knows something you don't).
Anyway, stay cool. Now you know
what I mean.
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