how cool is it not to have to ever wear a tie?

I have devoted more time in my life than I like to admit thinking about what was cool.  It was a more powerful motivator in my younger days than it is now.  In fact it was a bit of a relief just chucking the whole thing in my old age.  I had spent considerable effort on it, and I never was very successful at it.

But I think I have a different idea of cool than you do because I think an important element of it is what other people think, in fact thinking about it, I think that what other people think is what it is all about.  But not just any people.  If the squares think you are cool that doesn't mean a lot, and especially if they are very square, you don't want them to think you are cool.  What you really want is for other cool people to think you are cool.

I don't think it is as important to the rich, they can buy whatever they want, and I think they only care what other rich people think, and that can be measured by how much money they have,  The old rich is different, they are like the nobility, and they have their own ways of measuring things like who married into what family or whatever.

But of course none of that is available to the poor, but everybody wants status, so they put the value on other things, the way you wear your hat, the music you listen to.  I think most cool pop stuff comes from the poor.

I have been thinking about what you said about having something that was of no use but I kept it because it was cool, and I don't think I have anything like that. I have my art crap, and my books, and out on my balcony, my garden, but I use all that stuff.  I have useless junk, but I don't think it's cool, I'm just too lazy to throw it away.

But I have to admit, despite all I've said, I do have my recent surge of extrovertism, which I think is something like cool, I want to be noticed and I think about what other people think about me.  I have my hipster hat (which would look mundane on an actual hipster, but on an old fart, kind of has a beatnicky Daddio flair), my Santa beard between shavings, my improv group, my Marina City art club, promoting my shows at the Ten Cat.  One thing that's a little better about this old age cool as opposed to teenage cool is that I used to worry about fucking up and looking like a dork or an asshole or whatever.  I don't worry about that anymore.

But it's not stuff.  Do you every now and then pull out the busted guns and admire them with a misty smile on your face?  Do you go about your daily life with a bit more of a spring in your step knowing that they are tucked away somewhere in a closet?  If somebody stole them would you be bummed?

There was a certain hippy cool, certain clothes to wear, certainly certain music to listen to, certain political views to hold, but that was not something you had to pay attention to.  Nobody was going to put you down for not wearing bellbottoms.

There you go again with the war being a conspiracy to keep the baby boomers from coming together.  I don't know what you think we could have accomplished if we had all been together.  All we wanted to do was end the war, and though some of us like to take credit for it, I think it wound down on its own.  It looks like we are finally going to get legal pot, and people don't have to dress up as much as we did in the fifties.  That's one thing that I think hippies and nonhippies can get together and be grateful for.