Becoming The Coolest
credit: @theomzproject
Earlier this month, the neighborhood I live in, Andersonville, was voted “The Coolest Neighborhood in the US” and the second coolest neighborhood in the world in the 2021 Time Out Index survey which polled 27,000 voters across the world.
Andersonville beat out such luminaries as Chelsea (New York), Sai Kung (Hong Kong) and Gracia (Barcelona). The judging process was involved and “based on thousands of reader responses, which are then meticulously vetted and ranked according to criteria ranging from food and drink to nightlife and culture” by Time Out’s editorial staff.
It’s a great honor and achievement, and one that my neighborhood should be proud of. (If you haven’t been, you should. It really is a great neighborhood.)
But, of course, not everyone will agree.
Indeed, if there’s one thing that’s certain about lists of things and places that are considered the “coolest” and the “best”, it is exactly that - that not everyone will agree. We’ll all have our own opinions and points of view about what “best” actually is.
And that’s actually a good thing.
Because the criteria with which we discern and define what we love or hate isn’t static, nor is it universal. Each of us will apply different criteria to the same evaluation. And even where we use the same criteria, the weightage by which we assess each factor may well vary.
Even within ourselves, we might judge the same thing differently depending on a multitude of factors - from our mental state to our income level to our changing tastes, etc. Think of your own favorite restaurants when you were 10 versus 20 versus 30 years old. It’s hardly likely to have remained the same (and you can think for yourself why that is).
There’s no one size fits all. There are opinions and points of view but all of them serve as guideposts. Relying on any such view as a ‘definite’ is foolhardy.
Because the fact of the matter is that we’re all different, and what we offer and consume and value is different. Not better or worse, but different. Yes, perhaps we can agree on relative scales (though some might dispute even that), but not on absolutes.
My point is, these types of lists are a guide. They’re indicative, not definitive. They’re directional, not final. It’s certainly nice to be on them, but if we’re not, it doesn’t mean we’re done for.
They shouldn’t be the goal - because the work to get there, the process, if you will, is the real goal. Doing the real and difficult and painful and hard work of making something great is the real goal. Something that will move someone - even sometimes just one person or a small cohort.
But when we make getting on the list the goal, we’re doing ourselves a disservice.
(Seriously, though, Andersonville really is the coolest. Come visit!)
