Hw 34: The Cool Pose

Cultural background and the neighborhood a person grows up in has such a huge impact on their interpretations of cool. Just like everyone has different opinions on matters pertaining to their lives, they also have different perceptions of what they consider to be cool. The hippest, trendiest most confident person at one School could be considered a total tool at another. It all depends to the environment and how well you can fit into it to really determine how much social status a person has.
And its more then just status, being cool also gives you a set of values and responsibilities to live up to. Its been said in T.V. shows and movies before that "being cool isn't easy".

It seems that once you choose a pose to wear, you must not only keep renewing it in order to continue staying in that pose, but you must also pretest and defend it against people who dislike you for it or may want to change the pose you posses.

That's why there are always two ways to be cool, to rebel and do your own thing OR to follow the crowd and work a popular style the best to your ability. It seems though, in any situation there is always pressure to be a certain way. Everyone around us has an expectation of the way they want others to act. Our parents want us to be respectable successful people, our teachers and bosses want us to be obedient, and our friends want us to want the same things they want.
Sometimes I fear its all so you can fit nicely into the system, so that we don't disrupt the nice structure of our society. But are we really being ourselves when we do things for the amusement and satisfaction of others? And where do we draw the line in order to truly be who we want?

Is being cool so imperative to survive, or are we just raised to want certain things and act a certain way? And how might this effect the ways we deal with change?
For instance, what we consider cool as a teenager will most likely be a lot different from what we find cool in college or as young adults. Its because we are constantly changing our surroundings, adjusting and morphing into different people as the environment changes, according to me. And if I'm right then I wonder if we're ever really being true to ourselves. Shouldn't we stay the same no matter where we are?
Then again, we can't all live n the past and act as we did when we were 16 years old or else our delegate little society may resort to a bunch of video game playing, party hopping, shopaholic assholes.

So we all have to change. And we all have to grow up. Usually, our backgrounds effect us as kids, but not necessarily as adults. So this cool pose may just be temporary. Unfortunately who we are in the beginning sets us on paths to continue our pose. If we're involved in a gang as children where we become accustomed to violence and vulgar acts, that may carry out into their behavior as adults. Its just because of the values offered to them in the neighborhood they grew up in.

We're all born as clean plates, relying on our parents and teachers to mold and guide us into good people. Or, into the little clones they want us to be. It takes a good ten years for us to start realizing that our superiors aren't necessarily as smart as we thought, and may not always be right. Then we have to look to new places for guidance, whether from ourselves or out surroundings.

The human body is like a canvas for the soul, a way for personalities to be expressed from the outside without having to open our mouths. Almost everything about our bodies can be altered to fit into a certain criteria of cool. We can change out outfit, hair, stance and freshness. What I mean by freshness is that we can tattoo, pierce and cover up with makeup almost anywhere on our clear clean bodies. People change their original looks either to fit into a group more easily, or to stand out in the crowd.
Many different titles require different demeanor, for instance a professional style requires neatly combed hair, not too much skin revealed and a nicely fitted suit.
But a style required for an artist may be a polar opposite. We must decide on the inside how we want to look on the outside.

I think people who change up their looks the most often are the ones who really know what they like the best, because they've gone through stages to get where they are.

There was a time where I assumed Samantha Kaplan would die her hair every shade of the rainbow, but now she settles on platinum blond because its what looks best for her.
Andy may have had a Mohawk once to be original, but now he tries to convince us that he doesn't care about the style of his hair, even though he's always running his hand through it.

If we're so ignorant then I think the only way to try and redeem ourselves is to stop having boundaries for our looks and just venture into the unknown. Experiment. Fail. Start all over again.

It may not be as easy for those who are expected to look one way, as to blend more easily into their culture of their neighborhood. But if we live in fear how can we ever embrace the unexpected change of the world?

We have to be in control of our maps, but not hold on to them too tightly as a way of preparing ourselves for when our maps may be smashed and completely altered.