Cool

What is cool? It can have a lot of meanings depending on who you're talking to, but I'll tell you what it means to me - at least in the context of personality. I would define cool as the level of detachment one has from one's surroundings. Everyone knows firsthand that this detachment can vary immensely between different people, but I strongly believe that the sweet spot is right in the middle.

Too much cool makes you aloof, inaccessible, unfriendly, unable to work as part of a team, and generally cuts you off from society. Also, the more you detach from other people, the less important you perceive them as, relative to yourself. This often causes you to lose sight of the best interests of society as a whole, and to take advantage of others for personal gain. People with too much cool can be recognized by their cynicism and resistance to others' ideas, their negative condescension and humor at the expense of others (in excess), and their general ivory-tower attitude. One place where this shows pretty obviously is in their reaction to other people's humor. A super-cool person would tend to resist smiling or laughter. If they did laugh, it would be in a condescending manner, as if to say "I think it's trite and funny that you think that's funny." I think that's a little funny in itself, and would probably laugh at it. Another risk of being too detached is that nobody can understand you or relate to you, because you place little to no importance on making your ideas accessible and comprehensible for others. You do become very efficient with your ideas, because you need only move forward based on what you know (no translation required), but if individual efficiency were the name of the game the world would be a very different place.

On the other side of the spectrum, too little cool makes you clingy, nosy, overbearing, unable to work individually, and generally tethers you very closely to society. As you become more attached to other people, the more important you perceive them as, relative to yourself. Because of this, you lose sight of your own best interests and are easily taken advantage of. Uncool people can be recognized by their over-emphasis of others' ideas, their fear of abandonment, and their naivety (the counterpart to the cynicism of the super-cool). It seems to me that people or behaviors like this aren't as common as the former, or maybe this side of the concept is still sticking to the toothpick a little, if you know what I mean. I do want to flesh it out some more, so I'll come back to it in later posts.

As you can see, being too far either way causes problems, and like Goldilocks and the three bears, the middle ends up being the way to go. If you're 50% detached, you're still approachable and open to outside ideas, yet capable of generating your own. People exhibiting this level of cool can usually be recognized by their level-headed demeanor, their far-reaching empathy, their receptive attitude toward others' ideas, and their sweet hair and/or sunglasses (just kidding). Another hallmark of these fifty-percenters is their self confidence and security, and it makes perfect sense. When you're half detached, you perceive yourself and others with equal importance, so it's only natural to feel like you can do anything just as well as anyone else.

I'm not saying either of these extremes in behavior and personality are bad, because good and bad is an entirely subjective concept; I'm just stating my observation that dwelling consistently at either end of the spectrum does cause social friction. It's entirely a matter of personal choice how you interpret what I'm saying, and be sure to bear in mind that these descriptions are really just snapshots of personality traits, like photographs; in reality it's more like video, and people's levels of cool are always fluctuating in regards to different environmental factors. Furthermore, because of that pesky bell curve, you probably won't see many people who exhibit the extremes I'm describing for any period of time. Many of us are right around the middle, so the concepts I'm talking about here need only be our guides to keep us there.