best of craigslist : Through being cool

best of craigslist : Through being cool

An essay, by an American who grew up in Australia, about the difference between being a "friend" in the American sense and a "mate" in the Australian sense, about how one deals with being chosen last shapes the course of your life, about how childhood rejects evolve into avant-garde hipsters, and about the lie that "the only thing that stands between our current state and wholeness is a particular commodity." He ties it all together in thought-provoking ways. Must reading for parents of boys.

"The point is that every boy and every man needs to know his friends chose him. It's hard-wired into our brains. We need to know that we were worth picking, that we're valued for what we contribute to the people around us. We need it in our jobs, in our friendships, and in our relationships. Those boys and men who never get chosen, who never become the people anyone would want on their side, are damaged goods. They're not really cool, they're undeveloped."

(Via Pretty Numbers.)