Being cool means different things depending on where you are.
I’m in New York right now, and I feel like I’m nobody, but at the same time, I could be ANY body. This city has such a concentration of creativity that barely anything anyone create will be perceived as top percentile. But at the same time, I could meet really high-profile people if I wanted to, or have the right kind of passion. In this city, you showed up and there’s Ocean Vuong at a corner of a Chinatown bookstore, and an actress who just got featured on HBO you met at a Starbucks, and this Emmy-nominated producer, and this
But American coolness is so crippling. It’s more like the more “random” and “unique” you are the better. You gotta know indie artists that barely a handful of people listened to, and decorate your shoes in the most absurd way possible, and went out for the most exclusive, invited-only event with live music and psychedelic and body paint on the weekend. What a disgrace if you’re “basic.” I know, it’s brushed off on me, I walked around Manhattan and felt like every unique outfit is a direct attack to my “bland” appearance. “Notice me!” I got into this trap. I’m slowly crawling out of it though, to carve out space to just be and create.
But in Taiwan, I didn’t have the same crippling pressure to “be cool.” “Cool” there means quite a traditional success, and I’ve got that checked in Taiwan (and Vietnam). I’ve studied at a US college, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve got a good-paycheck tech job. So anything you do outside of that scope is for your own sake, you won’t get any social recognition from going to a farm and learning how to grow herbs. Because of this, when I met people via hobbies, they tend to be quite natural and not showy, nor attached to a serious ideology. For example, I’ve gone to communities garden in a few cities now, and most of them wanted to “stomp on the ruins of capitalism with our new commune ideology,” or get quite dark around the future of climate change. But when I was in Taipei’s Songshan community garden, it was just uncles and aunties from the neighborhood spending their afternoon to hang out with each other, then get some fresh organic veggies. We drank plum juice together and talked nonsense while helping the others’ slot. There’s no discussion of visions, but they naturally brought kids to the farm and collaborated with local schools, because the elders view it as essential that the kids know that chickens have fur and aren’t smooth pink, and that soil’s brown turns darker when you water them.
In Buenos Aires, I learned the freedom of being sensual without having to be sexual. A bunch of us, of course, went to Tango and Bachata and Salsa classes, because the economy was crashing and we benefited as dollar-based expats. That was probably the most amount of body contact with random strangers I’ve ever had. We touched and grind and guide each other’s body, and when the music switches, a new partner. But it didn’t have to be sexual, as in leading to making out or having sex. In that way, my sensual being is viewed more than just my vagina and butts and boobs. The caressing of the hand or how you slow down to the music. I guess I also liked it because there’s no implication to my sensual acts. We can just let it be what of the moment. I also think we sincerely need human touch to feel connected. It’s often just limited to intimate relationships, but ain’t a cuddle just on its own really nice, or a hug, or when someone stroke your hair and JUST that?? I enjoyed feeling that there are other parts of my body, my being, being seen, than just being a sexual content to be consumed.
In San Francisco, even though I think the city’s dead now, it still offers a type of freedom to have ANY idea and have everyone be receptive of that. Silicon Valley’s zennith for innovation means it’s not much loss if you don’t succeed.