Just a couple of days ago, I had a conversation with one of you about how sad I think it is that here we are in our 30s and we think of ourselves as professionals and want to be taken seriously. But then, some of us, one third-party in particular, we'll call her Franny. So Franny feels the need to feel "cool." And she creates this online persona, and she talks about how she's an intellectual but she also knows how to ROC and how she just loves people with brilliant minds who also know how to party. And my comment, my response, was, "Well, I think that's a little sad. That here she is an intellectual who wants to be taken seriously as a professional, but then Franny gets on MySpace, which is just for 17-year-olds to hook up anyway, and wants to project this uber-hip, super cool persona. I think it's sad that at 31 she's so insecure that she has to do that." And, of course, her name really isn't Franny, but I just over the weekend had this conversation with one of you. Only then I realized. . .
. . . I realized that I'm doing the same thing, needing to feel cool, only in my much dorkier, nerdier, kind of way (Side note: I recently took a quiz on the net that determined I was a "modern, cool nerd."). Only I don't go around talking about how much I like to party, because I really don't party, not at all. And I never have. But instead of feeling cool because I party, I in my interior monologue, walk around feeling cool because I drink tea instead of coffee. And I like coffee, used to be an addict. (Hi, I'm Drennan, and I'm a recovering coffeeholic.) But now I've switched to tea, and I have become this weird tea snob. And I drink cup after cup, all day long, in class, in my office, at home. But I feel oddly superior because I'm drinking tea, not coffee like everyone else.
So aren't I just the same as Franny? Only I get my coolness fix from feeling somehow different (maybe it's my need to always feel as though I'm "interesting") simply because I'm all into tea? Isn't this weird / dumb? And the more I think about it, the more I think it was silly of me to be all catty about Franny because I'm just the same, only with me it's more internal. And I really do like tea.
2 comments:
I think everybody wants something that "defines" them, that either makes them different from others or helps them to fit in among a certain group. Growing up, I never fit into any certain group - I was involved in so many different things that I was friends with the jocks, the bandos and even some of the "thrashers" (what people in Ohio called skater dudes). I think when I got to college I was drawn to my husband because he actually had that "cool" persona - he had done and knew about so many things that I had no clue about - so of course I would be cool by association, right? Whatever. I am still who I am and still kind of searching for something that defines me- a real passion that pours out of me that others know I am about. I think it's deeper than just being "cool", Dren.
I'm with joybugs on the defining passion... but I say this, of course, savouring (oh you know, with an "ou" hehe) my last pot of adiago black cream tea--although I'm still a coffeeholic so I like to play it both ways...
but I also think that you find creative ways in your life to even out the bumps on the road. I know we've talked about how you are good about followiing through with tasks--especially when everything else seems shitty--but I think you're more than a good task master (that sounds like some kinky role in a video game). Seriously, though, I think that you are good at holding onto a core sense of yourself and you seek out ways to feed your creative soul. We've all been witness to it here on the blog with the passion as well as the fun you give to your reading life, and in your search for a new church and a place where you can fulfill your spiritual needs, and of course your cool hair and clothes (which really is why i'm your friend after all...).
I guess I'm saying yeah--in some way maybe we're all like Frannie looking for ways to define ourselves so that we can connect with other people--but I think the connection you and I hope me and everyone here is going for is a kind of E.M. Forster connection rather than the I hang out with roc stars. But then again, maybe it's all the same thing.
Either way, three cheers to Drennan.
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