Cool...

Here is a quote from a book I'm reading. This quote is an amazing thought. It seems as one of those things that I have always known, but was never able to articulate. I believe that this is an accurate diagnosis of the muck in which we live in our world, particularly in the youth culture. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I was wondering the other day, why it is that we turn pop-figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren’t. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool. In other words, who cares what I believe about life, I only care that I am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aide society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether or not they are cool.

By Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz pg 105