hw 30

How does cool relate to our attempt to live in relation to this emptiness?

To all of us either in our conscious minds or sub-conscious we realize that our lives and actions in the grand scheme of things and in the relation to the rest of the universe we are relatively meaningless. Our lives as the physiologist Victor Frankl discovered are immersed into an empty void. And we desperately and often failingly try to fill it with meaning. This is what he called the existential vacuum. A website (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/frankl.html) devoted to explaining the life and theories of Frankl by a college professor states: “People today seem more than ever to be experiencing their lives as empty, meaningless, purposeless, aimless, adrift, and so on, and seem to be responding to these experiences with unusual behaviors that hurt themselves, others, society, or all three.” Basically we discover the emptiness and meaningless of our lives especially when we have nothing to preoccupy ourselves with. (Frankl defined it as Sunday neurosis, which Wikipedia defines as a form of depression resulting from awareness in some people of the emptiness of their lives once the working week is over.) and try and fill it with our perception of cool as a way to seem meaningful. I think that coolness is most immediate and popular responses to feeling empty and that is why it is so popular. As a result of obsessing over feeling meaningful we try desperately to be noticed and seem important. It happens in small ways: when you are in the elevator with another person so you instinctively take out your cell phone to act like you have something better to do and in big ways: philanthropists helping those less fortunate immensely to feel like they are making a difference in the world. However I do not believe that because we see our lives as meaningless is the only reason we are obsessed but also because we fail to accept the understanding that we are not the center of our universe. In real life unlike in space there is no sun to which all others orbit, we are all dependent and reliant on each other.

As Frankl explained we fill our misconception that we are center of the world with things that have often denoted success, like money and looks. We keep finding new things to cover these emptiness with, thus we have the action of cool. In my experience only a select few discover Sunday Neurosis consciously (becoming aware of the emptiness) and even fewer act on it. This leads me to think that people really do want to be ignorant. The majority of us rather not know the underlying human physiological chemistry and I think that is why cool and following others in its many archetypes have become so phenomenally popular. Everyone tries to take on the role of hero, some with devoting their success to helping others (philanthropists) and others by risking their lives to be needed, meaningful, and reliable (firemen.) Acting heroic helps us feel a purpose like we are working towards a greater society. We cover our insecurities of being empty by trying to be cool.

Schopenhauer, another physiologist and social theorist said that the three things that distinguish us as mortals is our broadcast sense (health beauty education), our possessions or financial ability, and our presentation to others. These work hand in hand, our financial situation allows us to take better care of our selves or buy anything from plastic surgery to clothes, and allows us to get a good education. And when these things come alive it changes other people’s perception of us we adapt to look a certain way based on our looks, and possessions. Therefore by Schopenhauer's definition of mortal, mortality in coolness is ever changeable and ever adapting to the circumstances of the mortals themselves. We strive to accomplish these tasks because they are what denote us as good and cool. Letting us feel just a little more purpose. The attempt to fall into all these categories is what pushes us to attention and the false validation of being purposeful. The emptiness sits beside us always and everyone tries to run away from it by filling his or her lives with the false validation obtained from acting heroic and important.