"Stay Cool "
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is hear no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Macbeth act V scene V
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Hamlet act I scene iii
When it comes to describing “cool,” Shakespeare has something to say worth hearing from a once cool guy, Macbeth, who makes terrible decisions and becomes extremely “uncool” and from an uncool guy, Polonius, who is manipulative and full of himself but comes up with advice about how to be cool that still sounds right after 400 years. In his quote Macbeth, a great war hero, sums up the meaninglessness of his life when he is about to be revealed as a murderer of his king and friends due to his lust for power and pressure from his ambitious wife, who has just committed suicide out of guilt. Polonius on the other hand has this “cool” moment when he tells his son Laertes, who is about to go out into the world on his own, to always to be honest with yourself so that you will always be honest with others because if you are not honest with others, then you would be being dishonest with yourself. Shakespeare’s plays have lasted because he wrote about human nature and he understood people’s weaknesses, that is their desire to elevate themselves in their own minds and everyone else’s. If having an awareness of a need to be cool is a part of our human nature and our competitive social environment, and there are serious dangers involved with trying to be cool, then our society needs to help us appreciate our own individuality and responsibility as a member of something bigger than our own social environment, and that thing is humanity. Three of the biggest dangers of trying to be cool are living a life that is short-term cool, having an identity that depends on what other people think of you, and having an identity that is completely selfish. When we give in to these dangers, we give up having meaning in our lives and any chance of looking back on our life and considering that we were actually “cool” people.
When Gwendolyn Brooks talks about her poem that begins “We real cool. We left school,” she says that she was trying to get inside the heads of some local boys in her community who were playing pool when they should have been in school. She said they were “thumbing their noses at the establishment.” It’s almost always cool to go against the establishment. It’s what many heroes do if the establishment is bad, and it’s what makes certain outlaws very cool like pirates and other outlaws who don’t fit into the establishment. It is also protective armor. Langston Hughes said, “Stay cool and dig all jive, that’s the reason I stay alive.” If school doesn’t seem like a place where you can be cool (get self-esteem), why make the effort? For black kids in poor inner city communities I think their special kind of coolness is something they can feel proud of because they own it. These kids have been trend setters for America and the world with songs, dances, language, clothing styles and gestures and body moves (pounds and chest bumps). And they should get credit for holding onto it. As Orlando Patterson says, there is also a lot of respect coming from white society and white corporations for this inner city culture. When establishment white people start talking about “in the house” or “in the hizzle”or learn the crip walk and corporations put the language and the moves in commercials, then the black kids often from the Bronx or L.A. come up with new expressions and new dances like “the jerk.” They stay ahead of the corporations who make fortunes making cool stuff mainstream and shortening its cool life. Unfortunately, except for successful athletes and hip hop artists, who are able to bypass college and make lots of money, for a lot of inner city kids no matter how talented their coolness is short-term because of a lack of good education. Unlike middle class kids who go to college because they are expected to go and go to schools and get the help to enable them to go, inner city minority kids don’t plan on going to college because they don’t go to good schools and they don’t get expensive tutors and help from well educated parents. These cool jive kids can often only stay cool by taking huge risks as they get older living in communities where drugs and guns make their culture a really dangerous one. In huge numbers they go to prison or get shot. Very uncool.
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is hear no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Macbeth act V scene V
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Hamlet act I scene iii
When it comes to describing “cool,” Shakespeare has something to say worth hearing from a once cool guy, Macbeth, who makes terrible decisions and becomes extremely “uncool” and from an uncool guy, Polonius, who is manipulative and full of himself but comes up with advice about how to be cool that still sounds right after 400 years. In his quote Macbeth, a great war hero, sums up the meaninglessness of his life when he is about to be revealed as a murderer of his king and friends due to his lust for power and pressure from his ambitious wife, who has just committed suicide out of guilt. Polonius on the other hand has this “cool” moment when he tells his son Laertes, who is about to go out into the world on his own, to always to be honest with yourself so that you will always be honest with others because if you are not honest with others, then you would be being dishonest with yourself. Shakespeare’s plays have lasted because he wrote about human nature and he understood people’s weaknesses, that is their desire to elevate themselves in their own minds and everyone else’s. If having an awareness of a need to be cool is a part of our human nature and our competitive social environment, and there are serious dangers involved with trying to be cool, then our society needs to help us appreciate our own individuality and responsibility as a member of something bigger than our own social environment, and that thing is humanity. Three of the biggest dangers of trying to be cool are living a life that is short-term cool, having an identity that depends on what other people think of you, and having an identity that is completely selfish. When we give in to these dangers, we give up having meaning in our lives and any chance of looking back on our life and considering that we were actually “cool” people.
When Gwendolyn Brooks talks about her poem that begins “We real cool. We left school,” she says that she was trying to get inside the heads of some local boys in her community who were playing pool when they should have been in school. She said they were “thumbing their noses at the establishment.” It’s almost always cool to go against the establishment. It’s what many heroes do if the establishment is bad, and it’s what makes certain outlaws very cool like pirates and other outlaws who don’t fit into the establishment. It is also protective armor. Langston Hughes said, “Stay cool and dig all jive, that’s the reason I stay alive.” If school doesn’t seem like a place where you can be cool (get self-esteem), why make the effort? For black kids in poor inner city communities I think their special kind of coolness is something they can feel proud of because they own it. These kids have been trend setters for America and the world with songs, dances, language, clothing styles and gestures and body moves (pounds and chest bumps). And they should get credit for holding onto it. As Orlando Patterson says, there is also a lot of respect coming from white society and white corporations for this inner city culture. When establishment white people start talking about “in the house” or “in the hizzle”or learn the crip walk and corporations put the language and the moves in commercials, then the black kids often from the Bronx or L.A. come up with new expressions and new dances like “the jerk.” They stay ahead of the corporations who make fortunes making cool stuff mainstream and shortening its cool life. Unfortunately, except for successful athletes and hip hop artists, who are able to bypass college and make lots of money, for a lot of inner city kids no matter how talented their coolness is short-term because of a lack of good education. Unlike middle class kids who go to college because they are expected to go and go to schools and get the help to enable them to go, inner city minority kids don’t plan on going to college because they don’t go to good schools and they don’t get expensive tutors and help from well educated parents. These cool jive kids can often only stay cool by taking huge risks as they get older living in communities where drugs and guns make their culture a really dangerous one. In huge numbers they go to prison or get shot. Very uncool.
Another danger of coolness is trying too hard to be cool and it is illustrated by the character Ivan Ilych from Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, who suffers from an extreme fear of death which leads him to be critical of the way he has lived his life as he looks back at an earlier, happier time in his life before coming to the realization that he has cared too much about money and social status. The way Ivan lives his life Ivan is contrasted with other characters in the story who are more open and honest about the way they live their lives, the peasant Gerasim for example, who truly cares for Ivan. Ivan, a judge who does not live for himself but for the purpose of social climbing blindly adopts values of an aristocratic society. He believes that if he emulates the materialistic life of high society he will find meaning in his own life. He marries not because of love but because he has found a woman who socially acceptable and decorates his house with fancy material objects to try to cement his upper class status. The Death of Ivan Ilych is a sophisticated psychological story about a man who is having what seems to me like an existential experience trying to figure out his own nature. Tolstoy is using Ivan Ilych to illustrate the moral that to have a good life people have to care about their fellow human beings and not be focused on trying to be "cool" in other people's eyes in a way that makes their world revolve only around them.
Having an identity that is completely selfish and shuts out other people is a third kind of dangerous way of trying to be cool is completely un-cool. Bullies, for example, make themselves feel good at the expense of others. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian Junior, a Native American freshman who upon entering an all-white high school was told by as a senior named Roger “You know Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo.” Roger, the bully had claimed the spotlight for that ten second span and the laughter that would follow was enough to satisfy his ego for some time. His reward was Junior’s pain. In the novel, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Ebenezer Scrooge starts to reflect on a life he has not lived well because of a supernatural experience when the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows him his own grave thanks to a visit from his dead partner Jacob Marley, who does not want Scrooge to suffer his fate of spending eternity in chains because of the greedy life he led. He has been shown by the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Present and of Christmas Yet to Come what a selfish miserable life he has had. Ivan has to reflects on his selfish life all on his own after an accident begins to cause him great pain and slowly kills him. He is searching for meaning in his life because he knows it is going to end and, as he says "... I did everything properly." He means that he did everything he thought the society he wanted to be in expected him to do. After shutting out society for so long Scrooge finally becomes a member of humanity.
Shakespeare’s advice, “To thine own self be true,” seems to me to be a lot like what the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Making something of ourselves gives meaning to our lives. Whether there is a god or not, we are all part of humanity, and our actions should be humane to be cool. Being arrogant or dishonest or cruel is not cool and neither is an unfair world where some are not given the advantages to make something of themselves.
Having an identity that is completely selfish and shuts out other people is a third kind of dangerous way of trying to be cool is completely un-cool. Bullies, for example, make themselves feel good at the expense of others. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian Junior, a Native American freshman who upon entering an all-white high school was told by as a senior named Roger “You know Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo.” Roger, the bully had claimed the spotlight for that ten second span and the laughter that would follow was enough to satisfy his ego for some time. His reward was Junior’s pain. In the novel, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Ebenezer Scrooge starts to reflect on a life he has not lived well because of a supernatural experience when the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows him his own grave thanks to a visit from his dead partner Jacob Marley, who does not want Scrooge to suffer his fate of spending eternity in chains because of the greedy life he led. He has been shown by the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Present and of Christmas Yet to Come what a selfish miserable life he has had. Ivan has to reflects on his selfish life all on his own after an accident begins to cause him great pain and slowly kills him. He is searching for meaning in his life because he knows it is going to end and, as he says "... I did everything properly." He means that he did everything he thought the society he wanted to be in expected him to do. After shutting out society for so long Scrooge finally becomes a member of humanity.
Shakespeare’s advice, “To thine own self be true,” seems to me to be a lot like what the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Making something of ourselves gives meaning to our lives. Whether there is a god or not, we are all part of humanity, and our actions should be humane to be cool. Being arrogant or dishonest or cruel is not cool and neither is an unfair world where some are not given the advantages to make something of themselves.
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