Cool is the dominant of the 20th century and likely the 21st. Why? Why especially when these centuries are marked primarily by change, by rapid progress? What is cool that it persists in the midst of technological and pop progress?
Cool articulates a beyond that it nonetheless here. Cool is word we use without ever really knowing its depth. A word we select particularly for its ability to represent that which is beyond our capacity to understand or to experience completely. We designate 'cool' anything that demonstrates some form of reserved mastery of the moment. We know that we don't fully comprehend that moment, but we sense something special in it.
The beyond here. The beyond that is here. Cool is not transcendent, because it is manifestly present. Perhaps hyper present.
What is at issue here? Firstly, we are never present to ourselves because 'present' as we know it is an aftereffect, an illusion. We're all coping with that. Cool is not mastery, cool is with-it-ness. If the river is following, cool bobs along. If the river tears cool apart, cool swirls. The present is a calculation. A calculation that will be recalculated again in an instant. Maybe there are meta-level calculations, but they too need to be recalculated at every instant, but the system operates on change at all levels.
If coolness is a transcendence—in part—a meta level, it is only insofar as it apprehends and accommodates change. Coolness too much always calculate, i.e. actively comprehend. Thus coolness is always in relation to the world, immersed. Calculation can't happen from outside of the system, but from a particular coordinate within the system. The essence of coolness is its ready apprehension of its situatedness, its crucial awareness of its location, its okayness with this position.
Okayness doesn't revoke the possibility of change. The heart of coolness is an acceptance of "truth" i.e. situatedness. Coolness is the nexus of apprehension and okayness. The apprehension of the specific "truth" of situatedness is necessarily limited, such is situatedness. Apprehension can never be complete, even of one's own situation. As such apprehension needs to always be paired with a form of acceptance we are calling "okayness." Apprehension is strived for. One seeks progress in apprehending their situatedness. One does not lull in limited knowledge, but drives toward further understanding of their particular state (particularly because that state is always shifting and requires recalculation). Acceptance in the form of okayness then is required to accept limited knowledge without foregoing the desire for acquiring more. Acceptance can't acquiesce. It does not, however, rebel thoughtlessly. Okayness is the base stand for acting (cool). Okayness accepts the temporary composite present as a place from which acting is possible. While this is fundamentally open to being utterly incorrect, completely revoked or dramatically overturned, this position is a necessity for living and acting. One does not assert the "rightness" of their position, only the "okayness" of their current state. There is a factor of due diligence that comes with apprehension. Okayness must willingly admit various states of potential "rightness." That is to say that okayness has to admit that there are positions of increased and decreased sense of apprehension that they must be okay with. Rightness is the wrong word. Judgement is not what is really at state—at least not at the level of right or wrong. What is at issue is can know versus can't know. The essential limit of situatedness must remain within the undetermined can't know. This does not revoke, however, a spectrum of seems to know. It is here that the system must admit flaws while still attempting at every recalculation to reassess them.
