Dear Younger Self,

You may not know it yet, but these sorts of letters will become popular over the years as a sort of cutsie modernist trend. People will begin writing words to their younger selves, and they’ll say things like “You might meet this girl one day; don’t be mean to her.”

I don’t have that sort of advice for you.

Be mean to everyone. Do whatever you want. Think of something. Okay, now do it. It doesn’t matter what it is. Do anything and everything. Pretend you’re made of fire, and around the world are patches of gasoline. Your job is to find all the gasoline you can, roll around in it, and enjoying watching everything burn.

Are you too stupid to understand that metaphor? If so, (and I assume you are), that’s okay, because you will keep getting dumber and less capable at things as you get older. There will be a few years of invincibility, from about 19 to 23, and afterwards you’ll wake up and stare around at the world wide-eyed and astonished, like it all suddenly became ugly and you’re seeing it differently. This must be a mistake, you’ll think. You’ll think it’ll wear off, but it won’t.

That’s okay. Embrace it. The sooner you learn to absorb shitty things, the better off you’ll be. Wow. This letter has been optimistic. Well, I’m sure you can at least find some hope in it. I do have one bit of advice for you, I suppose. Play more video games, watch more movies, read more books, and become a comic book nerd. If you do those four things every day, in about ten years you will be extremely valuable. Also, jerk-off more. Okay, bye for now. I’m going to go think of happy shit.

Cheers,

Your older self.