Too Cool to Care & Too Cool to Love

Ever notice how people being too “cool” and extremely nonchalant often feels a lot like them being “cold”? Well, let’s take aim at “too cool” culture, and how “perfection” theater on social media drains warmth, gratitude and everyday humanity. 

Transcript

Welcome From Orlando

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Grace in peace, grace and peace. Welcome to another rendition of the Moral Compass Chronicles. I'm your brother. I'm your host. I'm your man. I'm Eon Jay. And I am glad to be here with you, man. We are live, live from Orlando, Florida. Today I'm here on a little vacation with my family. Been here all week. All right. And today is the first day I'm doing any work. So I count it a privilege to be able to do this, man. And shout out to you guys who have been locked in with me. I've been seeing the streams and downloads and listens. It kind of looks like it's coming out of nowhere, but I know it's coming from you. So please continue to lock in with us, man, and we'll just keep this train going. I have a really really interesting thought. And it's something that I've been thinking about for a little while now. I have a friend as well who was on Instagram kind of talking about some of this stuff, and I can't even remember her name on here right now. But what I want to talk about today is this idea and this idea and this concept of everybody being too cool. Or first listen or first glance if you're watching. But there's this idea that we a lot of us are just too cool, bro. We're just too cool. Too cool for anything, right? There's a saying, you know, you hear that back in the day, kind of corny, but somebody will call you too cool for school or something like that, right? There's so many of us that are just too cool for school. Too cool for school, too cool for work, too cool for church, man. Too cool, too cool to praise God, worship the creator. There's a scripture in in Romans, it's Romans chapter one, I believe. It talks about uh people who find themselves worshiping the creation more than the creator. Um that's a whole nother subject, but that just came to me. Um but we're just too cool for everything, too cool to show each other love. Man, I I that's this is the generation we live in. I found myself talking to my little sister Sabina the other day, and I was talking to her about her generation. And I'm like, bro, yeah, yeah, y'all are cooked. Y'all are cooked. Like they're too cool to post on social media. Social media was, and and you know what? Shout out to my dog Chanel. And Chanel, she she was on Instagram, and this is my brother's wife, my brother Darrell's wife. Um, shout out to you guys. Much love to y'all. Um, she was on Instagram at least a year ago. And I'm going to our message thread right now, as a matter of fact, because she was on, she went on a whole diatribe on Instagram, mad stories, just talking about how everybody's too cool. And I got it right here, and I had to respond like, yo, you're preaching right now. She said, if everybody's a celebrity, then where's the civilians? Everybody's a celebrity. We're we're on Instagram, we're on social media. And it's funny, we used to talk a lot about what Instagram used to be like, right? Where there was a time where it was okay to post your real life on Instagram. There was a time where it was it was okay to show what you what your life actually looked like. Now it's as if it's a competition. It's a competition to see who's got the coolest looking pictures, who's got the best editing, who's got the and and and so many good ideas have died because there are so many people who are more concerned with getting things perfect, making things look like they're perfect, as opposed to actually just running with whatever the vision is that they have, or just going forward with with something they felt led to do, or something that could help somebody. Now it's not about that anymore. Because somebody could put out something that has some real value, so a piece of content, um, uh just go on there and start talking, adding value to the space, adding value to the world. And there's a person out here who doesn't want to do it because they don't have a Canon camera, they don't got the fancy microphone, they don't got the MacBook yet. You know, that I just got a MacBook, bro. I just got a MacBook six months ago. First one ever. But I've been doing content for two, three years now. Because it's not about the MacBook, it's just a tool. It's not about the focus right. This is my brother's. He let me borrow it. So I don't want to get too ahead of myself. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, excuse me. But we we're living in this generation where it's it's like it's we're too cool to add value to somebody else's life. We're it's it's not cool to show love. It's not cool to be a civilian, as my sister put it. And so let's let's dive in. Let's dive in a little bit, man. Let's let's dive into this thing just a little bit. Because she said, if everybody's a celebrity, then we're the civilians. Listen, I don't know how many celebrities I got listening to this, how many celebrities I got watching this, but I want you to know that you're listening to a civilian. All right, you're watching a civilian. Yes, I yes, I owned Audi at one point, but I'm a civilian, bro. Yeah, I'm this content creator who's putting out this stuff that I feel like God has led me to do, but I'm a civilian, bro. Yes, I'm in a fancy little hotel here in Orlando with my family. Yes, my wife is a registered nurse. Yes, I got the cutest and most beautiful little baby girl that this world has ever seen. But I'm a civilian, bro. I am a civilian.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I'm a civilian, and it is not I'm not too cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

I'm not too cool to show you that I'm a civilian and talk to you about me being a civilian. I've literally disclosed my entire damn near my entire life here on this podcast. So I want to go back to what I was talking about with um one of my little sisters, where it's like social media has become this cog where we are glorifying perfection even though none of us are perfect. So let's let's let's let's look at that for a second. We we are glorifying that which appears to be perfect among ourselves even though none of it is actually perfect.

Owning Civility And Being A Civilian

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So we're just full of it, aren't we? We're full of crap. We're full of crap. And and and I can't, we can't even take pictures anymore.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Some of us won't even take pictures and post it if we don't got makeup on. Fellas, we're not even gonna post nothing if we not if we don't got our fit together for real. Even though 90% of the time some of us are in sweats. We we we choose to show the 20%, even though the 20% is not what's real. The 20% is not how we live for real on a day-to-day basis. But but I I want to show you my my my 20 my 20%. I gotta show you my 10th percentile. Or, you know, the opposite, 90th. Or I don't want to show you the 90th. So we're we're full of crap. We're full of crap, bro. We're full of crap, and I I really wish I could tell you what what we're full of, but this is not that type of party. We've confused being cool with being cold to the point where I can't even we're not even showing each other love anymore. I I post the perfect looking picture. Let's look at how we move now, right? Somebody will post a perfect looking picture, not even showing how much it took to get that picture to look like that, right? The person on the opposite side of the camera, oh my god, bro. Like, I don't even know. This thing could either be two hours long or 20 minutes, because I'm about to wrap this up because I can't, I just can't do it. We'll post a perfect looking picture, not showing how much we put the camera person through to actually get it. All the editing that goes into it, because it's never good enough. I gotta put edits on top of it, even though all these cameras now, these iPhones, these Samsung's, all of these cameras are better than they've ever been. They're making us look better than we already look for real. But now we're editing every single blemish off our face, off our body, every imperfection, because that's the truth, is we are imperfect, as my daughter is in the other room, um giving my wife some wreck, making noise. Shout out to my girls. I don't know if you heard that, but we're editing every single blemish and imperfection away so that we can post it and make it look like we're perfect with the perfect caption. And then we got a bunch of people who half of them actually like us and will comment. The other half who comment are kind of really hating on us for real, but they'll comment to not look like a hater and they'll like the post so that they don't look like one, right? But we got all of these people commenting on our perfect-looking post, even though we are imperfect people. And to top it all off, it's too cool now to respond to comments. You go through some people's page, you will see some people don't even respond to comments anymore. They don't even respond to the compliments anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Like, what have we become, bro? Who made us like this? I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I I could tell you, I could tell you how we got here. See, the word of God explains this time period that we're living in right now, and and and the fact that this is what we would become.

Filters, Facades, And Fake Feedback

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Prideful, jealous, lovers, lovers of of ourselves, more than lovers of God, inventors of evil.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

That's I'm still in Romans right now. I'm still in Romans chapter one. Inventors of evil, and and that's not this, so I won't go there. But the Bible tells us that this is what we become, and now it's up how so I'm I'm a solution-based kind of person, right? This is the Moral Compass Chronicles. How do we combat this? How do we you have to stand up? We got people who love us commenting, complimenting us on our perfect looking post, even though it's imperfect, and we won't even say thank you because it's too cool to say thank you on the post. Yo, half of us are posting, and I don't want to call nobody out. We're posting, we're posting these these pictures, videos, reels, whether it be Instagram, TikTok, uh, YouTube, whatever, right? And we are sending the post direct message to other people. One of my man's, one of my sons does that every time he posts something, he sends it to me directly. And it's like, yo, you clearly sent this as a mass uh DM to everybody. Because I know you're not, or you caught he maybe he's copying and pasting. Yo, please like, comment, share, save, repost to your story.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

All that.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

So my son, my son will post this picture. Mind you, I know what he looked like in real life. So these posts that you post, you're not even fly, and this is my son, so I could talk about him. And I ain't gonna say his name, but he's a young dude, young boy. He's not even fly like that for real. I'm just keeping it 100. He's not even fly like that for real. My boy, I don't even want to go there, but I'll I'll just leave it at that, right? But he got if you were to go to his IG, you would think, oh nah, he he got that joint on. But he's not even like that. So he'll do that, right? And then direct message it to me. Yo, please like, share, comment, save it, repost to your story. Appreciate you. Thanks. In private, he'll do that. In the direct message, he'll do that. And then I'll go comment on your post. I'll like, share, comment, save, repost to my story, everything you asked me to do, and you won't even say thank you.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

You won't reply to the comment, say thank you. You won't heart the comment. Handsome young men, all of us, we doing that.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Beautiful young ladies. Y'all post y'all fly little pictures. People tell hard eyes. Oh, you're so beautiful, oh you're so handsome. Yes, friends, you're doing yes, yes. And we're too cool to respond. We gotta, yo, we gotta cut this out, guys. Man, bring back the old Instagram, bro. And that's the Instagram we make fun of when we would actually show each other love for real. It is not too cool. It's not cool to be cold, bro. It's not cool to be cold.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

It's not it's not cool to be cold. It's not lame to show love or to reciprocate love.

Scripture, Pride, And Numbness

SPEAKER_01 16:35

And I don't know, I don't I don't know, it's definitely like slowly this has happened, right, as we've progressed through time and through society, and as and it's so crazy because it's like the further advanced we get in technology and and stuff like that, it's like we're just we're becoming less and less human. And I'm not saying it's everybody, but I tell you what, you better make sure it's not you. Let's let's start to let's start to look inward, let's look at ourselves and make sure it's not us. Because we're not perfect, we're not perfect, and so we gotta stop trying to be. Stop trying to look like you're perfect. Some people will only post the best of what they got going on, you know, and I think it's you know, it's kind of it's inherent, right? It's it's it's sort of how we nobody wants to shine a light on, and I guess now we're kind of getting into the morality of it, right? Nobody, I don't think there's any person who actually enjoys exposing the negative and the bad parts about themselves, right? I don't think there's anybody who who wants to highlight the bad about them, right? Everybody wants to emphasize the good. Everybody wants to show the you know the the good things that they've got going on, and um it it makes us feel good, right? To emphas but and so there's nothing wrong with that. But we gotta be careful how we do it. Because at a certain point now we're lying. At a certain point now, you're you're creating a facade. Right? At a certain point you you it's it's it's all cap now. That now you you you're not valid.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

As valid as you're trying to make yourself look, you're not. So I I don't know. I don't know.

Old Instagram, New Apathy

SPEAKER_01 19:11

I I think we we gotta focus on getting that humanity back. Right? Where you know what? It's not to it's not too cool to say, or or better yet, it's not lame, rather. It's not corny, it's not, it's not, you know, you're not thirsty because you're shooting your shot. Oh god, don't even get me started on that, man. God forbid a young man. I mean, like, with good intentions in a healthy way, not the hard eyes on every single story for a year, not not the hey, what's up every day in her DMs because you can't take the non-response as an answer. You know what I'm saying? I'm not talking to you who'll be like I'm not talking to the person who's who's constantly like uh, you know, what's the word? Um harassing in the DMs. Like, I'm not talking to you, but God forbid a young man finds a young lady attractive or something and and actually tells her. God forbid a young lady likes likes somebody and and tells them, man, God forbid you're in a relationship and you know you're in love with somebody and you actually tell them, but it's too soon for society now. Man, I Lord forgive me for this, but I hate what we've become. I hate what we've become, and I pray that we can try to regain some sense of humanity. Because it's it's it's not it's not cool to be cold to each other, man. It's not, it's not it's like it's it's lame to say hello to somebody, a stranger, somebody you're walking down the street. It's like everybody gotta have beef. I'm a black man. I'm walking through the hood somewhere in Brooklyn. I see another black man, and we can't I can't even give bro a head nod. Yo, what's good, bro? How's every everything good? Alright, pass you. In the store or something, can't say what's up. I gotta stare at you, you gotta stare at me. We we gotta G check each other every single time. I'm tired. Yo, I'm tired, bro. I'm tired of being too tough, son. I'm tired. I'm tired. I want to see one of my guys who I never met before, one of my fellow black men. I want to be able to give you a head nod, bro, and smile when we passing each other on the street.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Good to see you, my G. Hope everything is alright.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Man, we we we passing our elders, bumping into them and telling them to watch where they're going. What the hell is going on, man? What the hell is going on? We acting a fool in the streets. And I'm in New York. I mean, I mean I'm in I'm in Florida right now, but I I live in New York and I just see it all too often. I'm at Lucky Corner on Ralph. School lets out at Tilden. And all these, all y'all young 13, 14, 15, 16-year-olds coming out of school, coming right to Lucky Corner, acting a fool.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

I mean middle of the store.

Make Warmth Normal Again

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And see the difference with this generation now, and I don't, oh Lord, now I'm the old guy on the and I said this in one of my last episodes. I feel like the old guy on the porch, man, nowadays. Because I guess I'm starting to get it. I'm finally starting to see it. But see, the difference is, see, my generation, we act a fool, but if an elder tell us, hey, y'all kids, y'all kids stop that cutting up now, and I'm I'm guess I'm I'm a little I'm southern with it right now, we're gonna stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Even if we laugh and snickering, oh I'm sorry, sir, I'm sorry. Y'all, y'all, yeah, this generation, man. This day and age, I'll call it, I won't even say this generation. This time we're living in now, the elders don't even say nothing to it. They see us acting a fool, they don't even say anything to us anymore. Because they know that, yo, one of these young kids will legitimately punch them in the face. Well, yo, I hate what we've become, and so we gotta get back. We gotta get back, and I think it's there is a bridge, and I think it's us. You who are listening. Typically, more likely than not, you are around my age group. You know, you're between the 20s and the 30s, more than likely. Um, I know there's some younger who's listening, some older. But, you know, the younger, the younger ones who are listening, probably rolling your eyes. The older ones who are listening are like, yo, yeah, yeah, yeah. But see, us now who are in the middle, we did both, right? We did both. We we both showed love and played too cool. You are who I'm talking to. And I think it's time for us to start to really dial in and lock in on getting that humanity back where we can tell each other we love. It it lets let's make that cool again. Telling each other we love each other, man. Letting each other know that we miss each other, yo. I miss you. I know life has drawn us in so many different directions. It's not beef because we haven't spoken to each other in a year.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

You're not acting funny. You probably got married and had children.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Like, bro. You had a somebody had a tragic life experience in the last year, and you got somebody thinking this person has a problem with them. It's it's gotta stop. I I I know I'm bouncing around here. Like I said, I haven't done any work all week, but I've been thinking about a lot of this, man. And so we we've got to return to being human.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

We gotta return to being human, man. Humans feel.

unknown 26:51

Right?

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Not always, it's not always good, but humans feel. We we we're we're trying to give off the illusion that we're numb. We've become so numb to everything that now, even if we're not numb, we want it to look like we are. Some of us will care so much about something, but we don't want to show it because it's not cool to show it. It's frowned upon to show that we care about something or someone. But I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage you. Yo, it's not too cool. It's not, it's not too cool to act like you don't care. It's not cool. That's not cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

It's not cool at all. It's actually lame. To me at least.

Street Respect And Elders

SPEAKER_01 27:48

And and so many people are dying with regrets. And watch this, so many people lose somebody, and now you have to live with that regret for the rest of your life because you didn't show them how much you cared while they were still here. They talk about giving the flowers, right? It it was too, it, it, it, it, it wasn't cool. We found ourselves being too cool to show that we cared, show that we loved. Some of us, the last compliment we got from somebody, it went unresponded to. And we never see that person again.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Too much, too much emotional detachment.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Too much of it. Too much. Enough is enough. So let's try to refinitely. You know, tell somebody you care about them today, tomorrow, whenever you hear this, whenever you see this. Encourage somebody. That's cool. Encouraging somebody is cool, bro. Loving on somebody, telling somebody thank you when they compliment you, that's cool. That's cool. Man, I love you guys. I love y'all, and uh thanks for listening again, man. This is the Moral Compass Chronicles. I'm looking forward to us. Hey, maybe maybe we'll stay here and and stick around this um the next time around. But I love you guys, man, and and and let's let's let's do better. Let's do better. All right, each and every one of us. Each and every one of us, man. All right. This is Demoral Compass Chronicles. Until next time. Bless you guys.