COOL…

cool...

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“That’s cool!” I hear that statement fairly often. Use it myself too. It’s a hip way to say we like or agree with something or someone. It’s kinda like saying something is “really, really good,” but saying “cool” is just, well, a cooler way to say it I guess. I’m about to step on some reader’s toes here but bear with me, I’ll stomp on everyone’s, myself included before I finish.

My wife and I were out to dinner the other night when two young couples sat next to us. They were dressed nice and carried themselves with dignity. I knew right away that these younger couples were “cool,” I mean really cool. All of them had tattoos, lots and lots of tattoos. I suppose if one tattoo is cool, then more tattoos is well, even cooler…

We all want to be cool don’t we? We long to be accepted, recognized, have significance in this world. We all long for the same things. We just have different ways of trying to attain those things, the things that we think make us cool. Society tells us what’s cool. While it was before my time, I know back in the fifties it was the black leather jacket for the guys and bobbie socks with patent leather shoes and a certain type of skirt for the girls that spoke of cool.

The sixties brought about peace signs, headbands, and longer hair. The seventies brought ripped up 501’s for some, leisure suits and platform shoes for others. It was toward the end of the seventies that piercing started to make it’s move into society to announce who was cool. The eighties brought about the wild hair styles and colors that expressed the new cool along with the piercings and tattoos.

In the struggle to make individual statements about being cool we’ve had to do more, out do the past to achieve the ultimate in cool. None of  us are immune, we might have different fashion tastes, but we all have a need to be accepted and recognized, myself included.

Think about your life and the things done, time spent trying to “appear” a certain way. The flesh is weak, society proves it by how desperate we are to have our flesh look a certain way – even if it means trying to “look” just the opposite as the trend. Cutting our hair, dressing a certain way, and talking in the right way, is another way we think is “cool” or acceptable… but to who?

When we live our lives for other people and what they think about us to any degree, we fall right back into the same boat as the rest of humanity; insecure, fallen beings. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to not be somewhat susceptible to the influence of society, but what I know for sure is “cool” is strength.

The quest of society to look cool is the desire to appear strong on the outside, regardless of gender. True cool, in my opinion, comes from the inside, it is the manifestation of God in  us that reveals His power on our outside. Real cool is on the inside, not the outside…

The scar on my left earlobe reminds me of that fact…