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Excerpts from Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller "I talked to a friend recently who said she liked Ethan Hawke, the actor and writer. He has a couple of novels out and they are supposed to be really good, but I haven't read them. I know he is a fan of Douglas Coupland, which is a good thing if you ask me, so I'd probably like to read his stuff some day. But she was saying how much she liked him as a person, and I asked her why. She had to think quite a bit about it before she answered, bu her answer was that he was an actor and a writer, not just an actor. He is an actor and a writer and that is why you like him? I asked. Yes, she said. I mean do you know what he believes. I looked at her very squarely. Believes about what? she asked. Believes about anything, I said. Well, she told me as she sat back in her chair, I don't know. I don't know what he believes. Do you think he is cool? I asked her. Of course he is cool, she said. And that is the thing that is so frustrating to me. I don't know if we really like pop-culture icons, follow them, but into them because we resonate with what they believe or whether we buy into them because we think they are cool. I was wondering the other day, why it is that we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very, very important that we are cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people belive, what they stand for; it only matters that the are cool. In other words, who cares what I believe about life, I only care that I am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culutre is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether or not they are cool. The thing that I have to work on in myself is this issue of belief. Gandhi believed Jesus when he said to turn the other cheek. Gandhi brought down the British Empire, deeply injured the caste system, and changed the world. Mother Teresa believed Jesus when he said everybody was priceless, even the ugly ones, the smelly ones, and Mother Teresa changed the world by showing them that a human being can be selfless. Peter finally believed the gospel after he got yelled at by Paul. Peter and Paul changed the world by starting small churches in godless towns. Eminem believes he is a better rapper than other rappers. Profound. Let's all follow Eminem." . . . . "What I believe is not what I say believe; what I believe is what I do."