In elementary school, everyone thought the older kids were cooler. They had the nice bikes. They were bigger. They played better basketball. Mom and dad, not to mention teachers, entrusted them with more responsibility. I remember being in first and second grade looking up to the super cool fifth-graders. They got to play “Oregon Trail” in the computer labs and did interesting projects on the rainforest and American Indian tribes. Not subjected to the evils of spelling tests, they did algebra with little pawns and got to play “Nukem.” They were oh, so cool.

Then came junior high, when the eighth-graders were a leather jacket and cigarette butt away from being “The Outsiders.” They exuded the cool that James Dean and “Easy Rider” embodied to my parents’ generation. In my junior high, the older kids were even able to go to the local young persons community center and play pool or video games. So cool.

And then came high school. As a freshman, nobody is as cool as a senior who gets to drive(!!) to school and can park in the student lot. As a dawdling, awkward 14-year-old (as opposed to my current state as a dawdling, awkward-cough, cough-24-year-old), I pictured myself driving around town at 16, 17 and 18, cruising for babes in my smoking hot 1987 Nissan Sentra (may it rest in peace). They would not be able to resist the “Japanese Silver Bullet” and its mature, sophisticated driver. Forget the Fonz, I was going to be the coolest kid in school once I got older.

Sometime after that, I got old. Not older, old. Well, for a young person. In my current state of worldliness, I admit that being old is not as cool as it seems. The aging process best fits in the “grass is always greener” paradigm. At each point in time, the next step seems more attractive. To the junior high kids, high school is the place to be. In high school, nothing beats college. In college, at some point living and working on your own starts to look better than class and dirty bars.

So here I am, well past the last “fun” birthday that brings with it additional rights and responsibilities (unless, of course, you plan on becoming a serial car renter or running for Congress). So, am I cool and respected for my experience, wisdom and remarkable avoidance of wrinkles and gray hair? I think we can all safely say the answer to that is no.

So I ask again, when did age cease to be cool?

At all stages of life, coolness varies temporally and perceptually. As time slips by, different activities, rights and responsibilities become of paramount importance. While in junior high rebelling against the padres seems like the best course of action for independence, in high school, prudence mandates getting along with them to acquire the right to transportation (a.k.a. getting a “yes” to the question “Can I borrow the car?”). The priorities changed from gaining symbolic autonomy (in junior high) to the true independence transportation brings (in high school).

Coolness evolves similarly when comparing people with different levels of cool. For example, to your Class A nerd (me), Johnny Depp is cool. To one of our valiant football Fighting Illini, Tom Brady might be the coolest guy alive. Like every other subjective quality, coolness depends on the vantage point. People tend to respect and look up to aspects of character that matter to them, and those who possess the right mix of quality and style are cool. Because everyone has a different value system, logic determines that people have different standards for cool.

Combining the temporal and perceptual components of coolness suggests several principles. The first is that the grass is, in fact, always greener in the other pasture. Few people actually, and correctly, think they are the coolest ones around. Another is that if you think you are not cool, you need to find people who respect and admire the traits you possess. Thus, the initial question of when age ceasing to be cool becomes a rhetorical one. Age was never what freshmen found cool about seniors; their power, responsibility and experience are what the freshmen found cool at the time.

Lee is a senior in mechanical engineering and has learned from this extensive analysis that he is most definitely not cool.