Philosophy: how to be cool, part 0

Self-tutoring about life: the tutor reflects about coolness.

Back in the mid-90s, I was in university, so my wife and I were very poor. We didn’t have television. In the late ’90s we finally got TV and cable so we could watch X-Files on the Space Channel. It was quite luxurious, sitting in our townhouse watching Mulder and Scully.

Reconnecting with TV in ’98 revealed how much society had changed since ’92. The ads were different because the point of view was different. Already, the famous Millennials had a voice with increasing volume.

Around then an ad came on which asked, “How do you be the cool dad?” At one house, a father, dressed in baseball gear, offers to play baseball with his teen son and friend. The father seems to be doing everything right, but the kids won’t look away from the game console. In the second frame, a geeky-looking father with round glasses and a sweater walks in the room with memory chips in his hands: “Who wants more RAM?” The kids all come running to him.

The point about “cool” that I noticed, that moment, is that nobody tells you how to be cool. Someone who’s trying to be, by doing the “right things,” most likely isn’t. To the person who’s truly cool, “what to do” is obvious – just like the cool dad of that ad, handing out RAM chips.

I’ve known a few such people. I’ll be following up with ideas about what makes a person able to embody coolness.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.