What is "Cool"?

ADVICE: A reader asks the forbidden question

Sending in my latest dispatch from Athens where I will be for… some weeks. I am still offering a discount on yearly subscriptions so I can get the advice column to as many people as possible (god knows some of you need!).

I’m listening to a lot of God’s Mom right now. It’s Bria Salmena’s side project dedicated to reinterpreted Calabrian songs (fun fact, we went to high school together). Enjoy!

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Designs for Living is an advice column "dispensing sound advice in a noisy world.” Need advice? Write to me here. The previous home of this column was The Baffler. Paid subscribers get access to this column and the entire archive of advice.

Crashing Off Path

ADVICE: A thing of beauty is a joy forever

Dear Marlowe,

My question is about coolness (gah, even typing that word…). I guess I am not really interested in how to feel cool or how to stop caring about feeling cool. More: what is coolness? How does it work, as a dynamic, in interpersonal relationships and in terms of an artistic career. A recent thing that happened: a friend moved to my city, and was instantly enveloped in the art scene here, invited to dinners, to parties. Though I have met these people dozens of times, no such invitations were ever forthcoming. Which is not to say I think I’m a total loser.

I’ve been on the other side — a beneficiary of someone’s high esteem, which felt to me just as confusing and opaque. And yet I can think of three people right now who I know, in my heart of hearts, and despite their best efforts to dress well and pursue their dreams, just simply are not cool.

So, what is it? Is it about some inner integrity? Is it all just about illusion, hype and intrigue? I hope this question doesn’t make me sound too horrible. Like, who actually cares? However, it’s something I am curious to know your thoughts on.

—a Loser, clearly

Dear Cool-Curious,

Thank you for your question! I chose this one out of the bunch in my inbox simply because there are so many directions we can go. What fun! To me, the opposite of cool is angst. The informal definition being “a feeling of persistent worry about something trivial.” People who are charming are one thing, because that is a method of seduction. Cool is mostly made up of a lack—the lack of angst. It’s an ease with which you move through the world. No one who is actually cool is hemming and hawing about what people think about them. That’s why the language of coolness can be distilled down to one bodily movement: the shrug. It’s about being unruffled, unflappable, and adaptable.