Being cool in 2003 is all about stuff that should come naturally, natural health, natural feelings, answers you don't have to think about because they're going to come out right, because your truth is in the answers, in you and you don't put it on, you live it every day like the skin that connects you to the air and the touch of others.
It's about loving Coldplay and David Gray and Eminem but knowing that you still use a shovel to dig a hole, and that sex is not love and unsafe sex is not making love, but making greed, and disrespect for the Earth and its holy creatures, unholy conduct in holy communion.
It's about knowing when to turn off CNN and pick up a book, and finding the moral agility to know when you're watching news and when they're just fucking with your mind.
It's about not bitching when you earn two thousand times more than most of the people who woke up today and learning not to hate them for not knowing, not caring that they're destroying the world with ways you've left behind because you had the luxury of doing that.
It's about honesty that knows when to stop, knowing that it's not enough to tell the truth sometimes, especially when it gives you the chance to indulge your worse nature. It's knowing that at times tenderness is a greater bond, and keeping silent makes you a better person and it's yours to carry it alone, even when it hurts.
Being cool in 2003 is about having the balls to lose a friendship if the condition of keeping it is becoming someone you couldn't respect. It's about refusing to accommodate people who would treat you worse than you would treat them or yourself. Self-respect is a rare commodity and nobody's giving any away. There's never been enough to go round in the history of the world so don't go giving it up.
It's about not waiting to exhale but doing it right now because life is too short too sweet too precious, that it can be snatched by a guy in a gelignite vest at the mall or someone with business interests in China who leans across you to ask the hostess for another cup of bad coffee.
It's about knowing that home is a feeling you make, not a geographical location and that you never need to leave it, and who you invite in or shut out is what makes it a good or a bad place to be.
It's about weaving life from what you find, where it finds you, it's about grace. Grace.
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