Cool Beans

One of the very first lessons we learn as modern social people is that indifference is cool.

No, wait. Back up.

The first lesson we learn is that cool is good. It’s fed to us with our sippy cups in daycare. There were cliques in kindergarten long before heavy metal t-shirts came in kids’ sizes.

You have traumatic memories of not fitting in at grammar school. Don’t fib. We all do. It’s part of the process. Gets us ready to not fit in during adolescence.

At some point we begin to break down that-which-is-cool into smaller, supposedly attainable, chunks.

We can watch The Daily Show or wear what we think are the right jeans. We might be able to manage some of the vocabulary of cool.

(Ironically, the word “hipster” is no longer cool. Ironically enough, neither is “ironically”.)

But not caring is a big fat monster chunk o’ coolness. Always was, always will be.

I don’t get that.

Oh, I know about Buddha’s attitude of interested indifference. Good for him. That’s great. Buddha was cool. So was Steve McQueen, and he didn’t give a damn either.

Hmm, maybe there’s something in this.

I should explain. Last night I sat through an evening of comedy, some of which was very funny. (Go, Rocketship!*) There were self-proclaimed cool kids in the audience who refused to laugh, even at the funniest bits.

Apparently, laughter is un-cool.

There was a brief psychedelic moment in history when passion was cool. Caring was the shit. Laughter equaled joy, which was the gold ring in life. To be fair, joy is no longer cool either.

I just don’t get it.

I like to laugh. I like being happy. Harvey Rocketship was funny last night. I laughed.

And you know what? I’m cool with that.

*See Danger Room Improv on Facebook. Hit “like”. Be cool.