Barrett Garese

advice I would give to my high school children if I had any

10 20 28 pieces of advice I would give to my high school children if I had any.

Your music sucks. You don’t know it yet, but trust me on this one. You will think it’s awesome for years because of the emotional peaks and valleys you associate it with, but one day you will realize that all you’re is feeling nostalgia for hormones.

Listen to every Beatles album you can; The White Album at least twice. Listen to the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi, The Doors, Bowie, and Dylan. Only then can you move into the 80s, 90s, and this decade with any sort of perspective.

Learn to like the Blues, hip-hop, jazz, and orchestral music.

Actually, learn to love the blues.

Get really, really stoned and listen to all of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on headphones. Don’t tell your mother.

Go to college. It’s awesome and life-changing in ways that you could never understand.

If you don’t go to college, make it because you started your own business. You’ll learn the same amount of completely different stuff.

Always be learning. “He who knows nothing, and knows he knows nothing is wise.”

I cannot stress this enough: learn to play the guitar. Just trust me on this one.

Re-read all the books you were forced to read in high school 10 years later so you have enough perspective to care and understand them.

Spend at least three months before your 21st birthday living in a foreign country. It’ll help you appreciate the world.

Write. Bad poetry, song lyrics, a 4000 page novel about geckos, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be a better person for it.

Learn how to fail at something. Wikipedia can make you an instant fleeting expert on nearly any topic, but to be any good at anything at all, you have to understand having failed miserably at it.

Read your writing to a large group of people. (See above on failing.) You may substitute playing in a band for this, but only if you wrote the lyrics or are singing them - not if you’re the drummer.

Every so often, dance and sing in public. Karaoke counts, your car does not.

Friends come and go. More than friends also come and go too. The ones who are important come around more than once for both accounts; but if you fuck it up more than twice don’t expect them to come around again.

There’s nothing wrong, weird, shameful, or sinful about being gay. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Develop a taste for good food, good drink, good tea, and good coffee. Then, learn how to make all of them from scratch.

You know what? Learn to cook in general. It somehow makes every meal taste just a little bit better. You’ll also appreciate good restaurants more.

The daily trials and tribulations don’t ever go away, they just change forms. Change your perspective to match.

The end of your life, isn’t; it’s just a very harsh new beginning.

Don’t harbor a grudge. It’s not worth it and takes too much effort.

“Don’t look back in anger.”

We are at our most vulnerable when we ask for help; be there for those that look to you for help, guidance, or support.

“Finding yourself” isn’t an end goal, it’s a byproduct. If you’re living your life correctly, this will happen naturally. When you realize need to take a step back to “find yourself” it’s a sign that you’ve been doing something wrong on a larger scale.

Don’t be afraid to be different. Homogeny is boring. Humanity’s progression depends on those willing to step outside of the status quo. History loves the rebel.

Be fearless. Fortune favors the bold, but most people are too afraid to take advantage.

Don’t ever be ashamed of being who you are. Some people will never appreciate you; don’t be one of them.