“Cool” and “being polite” are overrated
About the first: it depends on the cool . Clearly, I was’t thinking about the birth of the cool .
This article below explains why we secretly hate cool bars. Bars here being a representation for other places like cafes, restaurants or even festivals. They don’t pay off the discomfort and stress that we have to go through to get a drink, dance, song ..
About the second: it’s about trying to stop the conspiracy of silence. In other words, to stop the self-censorship I was talking about some time ago. Here I am, bugged about the same topic. We fake and lie to be polite in different social contexts and we just play this game over and over again until we become oppressors of our own freedom of expression and thought. How is this related to the first? It is related because we just go with the cool, to be polite, even though we think and feel otherwise.
In this podcast episode by Hidden Brain, the speaker explains what happens when we lead our life by the fear of what other people think. Afraid of saying no, does that sound familiar? It’s pretty much about that – saying the opposite of what the mainstream says, what the majority or the minority says for fear we would be excluded or ridiculed. I was raised to be a nice and polite girl. Being nice means you are agreeable, but it took me 30 years to realize that doesn’t take me far and also doesn’t bring me peace of mind. It took me two kids to learn to stand up for myself and speak my mind, in order to be able to stand up for them and help them be truthful to themselves. Does that mean I have to “draw without lifting the pen”? No, I boil within and “I lift the pen” to take deep breaths and replay what I want to say, I torment myself until I finally say it out loud. At least I’m aware of the change needed. I just need to make sure I can say the opposite with grace. The exercise though has to start from somewhere.