Everyone knows I like science. In fact, I love it. Love!!! Recently I went back to Portland after a year and it felt like an experiment. How would the new me react to the old town? At first I was really excited. From the plane I saw the lights of the city and a wave of nostalgia swept over me. Portland is aesthetically beautiful. I have never doubted this. I didn't move 2700 miles away to get away from the gorgeous, epic views.
Portland has a lot of awesomeness going for it. Music, art, coffee, food, activism, progressive thinking, etc. It's a beautiful city that is relatively clean and easy to get around in. There's a lot to do and see and experience. All of my people are there, friends, family, former coworkers. I love so many things about that town. So what was I leaving behind? Two days of working at my old job, Bark, reminded me really quick. So many people in Portland have stickers all over their cars, bikes, and houses about the environment. People advertise how much they care about being "green" and saving the trees and our wild spaces and blah blah blah blah blah...
Anyone can own a sticker. Anyone can display it on a car, bike, or house. What I have discovered is that not just anyone actually has the gonads to do something. When it comes time for action, when our beloved national forests are being raped for foreign corporate profit, when drinking water, endangered species, healthy ecosystems, our national heritage, and Portland's epic aesthetic value are being threatened by the very agencies who are supposed to protect them, apathy takes over, and environmentalism becomes nothing more than another password into the Culture of Cool. And THAT is what I moved to leave behind: a world where clothes and music and tattoos and even causes determine your value as a human.
On my road trip across the country last summer, Stacie and I had breakfast at a Denny's in some small town in Ohio. I looked around at the people and noticed something odd about them: none of them were cool. They were just regular people. No one was cool, and the shocking thing about it was that no one cared about not being cool. It was like a breath of fresh air.
So many people are concerned about being cool or hip or whatever it is. But what about being nice? What about being honest or genuine or humble? Why are these traits so very out of fashion? Well, I'm bringing them back, dammit!
I myself have a lot of this Portland snobbery, I'll admit it. But I've learned that being real is a lot more important than being cool. In the name of science, I'm going to uncool myself. Anyone want to join me?
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