Sigh. Bear with me. I'm looking at my five-year-old and wondering what the teenage years might hold. Apparently my fourteen-year-old niece thinks that leg warmers, specifically neon ones, and other hideous items from the Eighties are cool. I'm not faulting her for wanting to wear things I wouldn't have worn the first time around. And I was there. Every generation has its retreading and redefining, I guess. How else can we explain Happy Days? I'm just wondering why there is so much pressure in our society to be cool. Can't we just all relax and enjoy what we like, no matter how geeky, without looking over our shoulder to see what the other guy thinks?
In a way, blogs are the ultimate discarding or celebration of cool. You can finally put your Star Wars action figure collection or other crazy enthusiasm up there for the world to see in all its glory. You might even find some other enthusiasts. Or you can write witheringly about everyone else's dreadful pursuits. I'd rather be the former than the latter, most of the time.Boxed DVD sets seem to be another outlet for the expression of inner geekdom and devotion. No, you cannot borrow my Angel DVDs unless you sign a release, thank you.
The iPod let's us celebrate all the wacky music from our past, picking and choosing some songs that we would never in a million years have forked over the dough for a whole cd by that particular artist, but have no shame in paying 99 cents for a got-to-have song like Jive Talkin'. Or maybe that's just me...
Maybe what I'm really writing about here is the inner nerd that never leaves one, but as an adult, gets refined and honed until it becomes a "collector" or "specialist." All I know is that as I get older, I am more and more likely to buy what I like and not what's considered "cool." Coldplay? Radiohead? No, thanks very much. I may trip over the random cool thing from time to time, mostly by accident, I'm sure.
These are things we used to call guilty pleasures. But this is a guilt-free enterprise and what I want to do is enjoy the things that I like, cool or no.
p.s. my latest got-to-have song is probably cool to some, awful to others, but just won't quit...
6 comments:
Have you ever read Bruce Mau's Manifesto? Here's number 14 on this inspirational list:
14. Don't be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
I actually think that anything can be cool. And cool isn't bad if it's authentic. Real cool is being comfortable in your own skin and being yourself, quirky likes and taste and all. Stars Wars action figures are cool. Nerds are cool. Anything can be coolif you really love it.
What isn't cool or what is "fake cool"is caring what others think or subscribing to a prescribed formula for cool, like designers wearing all black or women all carrying the same handbag.
It seems inevitable that young people have to go through this rite of passage that is about fitting in among their peers and we have to relive it as parents. I guess what I hope is that when it comes to fitting in my daughter sticks to fashion and music and skips drugs and alcohol. Boy, I guess I'm just not that cool anymore!
What my parents wanted for me was that I be happy. I mean, truly happy, not frantically or desperately happy in a false sort of way. They didn't give a damn' whether I was cool or not, or how many friends I had, or any of that stuff. Hence, quite frankly, neither did I.
I may be the only person in the universe for whom adolescence and high school were not a hell on earth -- I was so oblivious to the whole peer pressure thing that, as far as I can remember, it didn't even exist.
Granted, I had next to no social life, but I did have my books, and parents who obviously loved me deeply. That last was the most important thing of all.
Cross fingers that Lucy also grows up with that sense of inner worth and balance ... With the "real cool", as Jane puts it.
FYI... that 14 yr. old niece that you referenced wears leg warmrs(on her arms)and wants parachute pants because she Likes them. She could care less if anyone else does. She has no desire to be "cool". She wears what she likes because she likes it. She is cool not because of what she wears or her desire to have a blue streak in her hair but because as a teenager... she is the coolest one I know. She does well in any situation, she will talk to anyone about anything and has a deep desire to learn everything about how the world works and why. Oh and she LOVES Coldplay hee hee.
And for you Markin; she too has a collection of books that could rival the public library.
Jane, I will check that out. It sounds great. And I'm right there with you on the d&A thing. Leave the margaritas to the grown-ups, please. I keep saying in my head "not till she's 40!" No, I say it out loud, too. Once I had the kid, I stopped wearing so much black and dark colors, especially when I saw how dull my laundry was compared to hers!
Markin, my parents actually supported my nerdiness too, which is really what this post is about and why I attached the last few minutes from the great Revenge of the Nerds flick. I actually think the coolest thing is embracing your "enthusiasms" as my Grandma used to call them. Today it's called fandom, I guess.
P, please don't take this personally. It's my riff on adolescence (mine, too) and what crazy things float your boat. The picture of the Farscape action figure isn't just a fluke I grabbed from the Internet. I actually have the whole set. I know that 14-year old is the coolest. The neon thing just cracks me up because I used to work at Canal Jean Co. in the 80s at the height of the neon craze and had to stock tons of neon socks, bracelets, etc.
I'm getting the feeling there was some sort of miscommunication on my part ... I was just citing my childhood experience to support the basic meaning (as I read it) of the original posting and emphasizing that the way the parents raise the child has a lot to do with it. (Duh. [grin]) EP and I both escaped the peer pressure trap, and I suspect so will Lucy.
And it is wonderful to hear the 14-year-old niece is a biblioholic. For all its problems (like running out of space and having piles of books all over the floor), biblioholism is a great "disease" to have. (Obviously, since I suffer from it, myself.)
Books really do take over your space and your life, but that, I agree, is a very good disease to have. Now I just have to find a way to display all the action figures, too...
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