Hi there. It's me, your father/mentor/master-plumber/older-self. If it's all right with you, I'd like to drop some knowledge on your head. At the time of writing this I'm 18 years old. You probably think the only things on my mind are boobs and Poptarts, and you'd be partially right. Boobs and Poptarts do steal a lot of my mental energy. But they don't occupy all of it.

No, the other six percent of my mental capacity is split between two things, information needed to survive and memories. They're not even my memories sometimes. Sometimes I'll even just nab some from my parents. I'm sure they don't mind it, and if they did they haven't yet brought it up.

Lemme just tell you now, memories are the worst. They stick around even when you don't want them to, like bad credit or any door-to-door salesman ever. You can't help but sort of, well remember memories. They're sort of like drugs or online free-trials. The more you indulge yourself the more you're fucked. The solution to this is that there is no solution to this. At least we haven't found it yet. No, no, what I do, son (or daughter or mentee or apprentice or reincarnated-self) is to actively keep busy and pretend I've got it all under control. Is this healthy? No. Is this necessary? Almost as much as boobs and Poptarts.

The lesson here is that shit ain't clear cut. Unanswerable questions are simply unanswerable, like why the plural of "goose" is "geese" and not "gooseses." My only real advice is not to flip the fuck out when shit hits the fan. And it will hit the fan because shit always hits the fan.

Truth be told, there's a lot I do know. Never platy with fire, never run with scissors, never eat Play-Dough,,, again. Six-ply toilet paper is the best, Russia is the worst, and you can't really make a bad pizza, the worst you can do is make an okay pizza. But not everything is as clear cut as pizza. Sometimes shit just isn't clear cut, and it's always the shit that seems the most important. I'm not going to tell you to duck under the waves, but I'm also not going to tell you to swim against an unconquerable current. What I'm going to tell you is a truth that may only apply me. When you can, swim perpendicular to the current. When you can't, don't fret. You might, you know, drown a little bit, or a lotta bit, but you'll survive. Trust me, son or daughter or apprentice or younger, worse self, I'm older than you. I can't be wrong.