Too cool to try
I love the way A$AP Rocky crashes out on this Noisey interview: “Since when has it become not cool to try? F***** loser!” Different context, sure, but it stuck with me. Since when has it become uncool to try? I ask because I’m a recovering perfectionist. The type who waits for “perfect” conditions before making a move. I have to catch myself when I’m slipping back into that habit, when I’m stalling and calling it “timing.”
Here’s the hard truth; It’s humiliating to be bad at something. There’s no grace in fumbling. No poise in falling flat on your face. It’s bad enough to flop in private. But now, it mostly happens in public. Thousands of followers. Screenshots. Comments. And to top it all off we now live in the age of second-hand embarrassment. Your whackness can actually make other people feel terrible. Your effort, as noble as it it, can make other people uncomfortable. Jerrr!
TOO COOL TO CARE
So basically there are plenty of reasons not to try. But the one that gets me is how “uncool” it can make you seem. Coolness is an important social currency. But I’m on the side of Tyler The Creator on this matter. “You can’t be too cool to care.” And that’s the antidote I believe: Caring. Trying. Being willing to look stupid because you actually give a damn.
The creative life is built on that. It’s a life of endless attempts, public stumbles, and awkward experiments. And it’s incredible, almost heroic, how people can care so much about their craft that they are willing to endure the agony of fumbling in front of an audience and put their coolness on the line.
Tyler goes on to say, “If you’re too cool, you’ll freeze to death.”
And he’s right. There is one way to avoid the pain, the mess, the risk.
Stop trying. But then you’re frozen in time.