Miscellaneous Advice to Myself, Aged 17

• Chicken and chocolate will always give you enjoyment.  They will never let you down.  Also, ice cream.
• Emile Durkheim wrote many decades ago about what he called "anomie" in modern society.  He wrote a book called "On Suicide" also.  He felt that "anomie" is that condition of being anonymous, of being completely disconnected from the normal social groups that used to be such a natural part of society.   Of walking down a street and not knowing a single person and not having a single person know you either, and that being unlikely to change.  He felt that there needs to be a balance for a healthy life.  He felt that suicides tend to looked at as individual anomalies, but should be looked at in terms of which societies produce the most.  He wrote that suicide seems most often to result either from people  feeling completely disconnected from everyone around, or equally from the other extreme: feeling like a gear in a watch, so wedged in you can't even breathe or move unless everyone else decides it's time to, and then only with them and in the same direction.  You, my younger self, suffer from both extremes. In your teenaged, highschool social life, you suffer the former.  In your Christian/church/youth group life, you suffer the latter.  That means suicide is always going to be a problem.  Don't do it.  Leave that up to the other people from your church organization who will eventually succumb to it.  Make connections with people outside your church and youth group whenever possible, and continue to "move" within that church and youth group, even if others feel it threatens to spring all of the gears out if you don't do and be exactly what you're expected to.
• People around you are going to waste most of their lives and as much of your time as possible in "us vs. them" battles and thinking.  The problem is, you aren't ever going to be us nor them, so actually have no real vested interest in all of that.   Connection is the point, and "me vs. them" isn't going to give you that.
• Many of those things that you are learning to do? (loading, setting up and using a manual SLR film camera with exchangeable lenses; programming a computer; assembling entire computers from bits; researching stuff in a library; reading a handful of books a week,  writing spelling and typo-free stuff and then knowing how to address and mail that stuff to people in different parts of the world?) When you're middle-aged, teenagers won't know how to do that stuff in near the same numbers.  Mostly they will be used to pressing a button on a screen, saying "go" and then hoping it all magically does what they need it to, and giving up entirely if the magic box isn't in a good mood.
• You can disagree with and oppose someone else's statements, views, positions, plans, rules, criticisms and judgments without even bothering to construct a bulletproof argument against them, or saying a single word.  A blank, closed look should suffice.  They are unlikely to listen to you anyway, and in many cases don't feel obligated to have a bulletproof argument to have said, decided or started what they have done, so why do you need one?
• Graphic designers who have designed the cover art for horror movies and hard rock albums have not got evil all figured out.  You have little to fear from these movies and albums.  Contrary to what you have been taught, these are not all satanists trying to get converts.  Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmons, Meat Loaf, Pete Townsend and Keith Richards?  None of them are satanists.  Many of them do not even believe in Satan. You have been repeatedly lied to concerning these gentlemen.  Also: wear as much black as you like.  Just because it's the 80s does not mean you have to wear pastel, paisley, pinstriped or neon anything.
• You will be depressed a lot, so you need some good depressed music to make you feel better, to make you feel how universal your experience is.  That's "depressed," not "depressing," so not Abba, Barry Manilow, John Denver, Neil Diamond and the like.  Like most British singers, their voices are reedy, nasal and whiny, but listen to The Cure to hear Robert Smith making swirling, beautiful maelstroms of sadness with coruscating guitar effects, and Pink Floyd's Animals, The Wall, Wish You Were Here and even Dark Side of the Moon to hear arty lyrics which refer to books you've read like 1984, and provide a deep understanding of what it feels like to find growing up very lacking in the spirit and soul-nourishing department.  Maybe some Smiths, too.  There is no satanism involved in those last three artists, though I can't vouch for the former list.
• The night is awesome.  Go walk under the moon and stars in the country every opportunity you get.  Look up until it feels like you could fall into the sky, until the earth feels tiny and fragile.  In fact, every time you're depressed, walk for hours.  It provides relief.  And you hate the sun.  Always have, always will.  Your body can make and retain an impressive amount of heat, even in the coldest of Canadian winters.  It doesn't understand how to get rid of heat if the sun is shining.  Walking at night means anonymity, and not having the sun beat down on one.
• Know what makes you happy.  (see: chicken and chocolate.  Also: the night.  And stories with heroes in them, things with blades, taking pictures and video, recording or playing music, cats and dogs, and lighting things on fire). Stand by what makes you happy and respond with condescension or annoyance to anyone who tries to cast aspersions on "how edifying for a Christian" the things you see excellence or joy in really are.
• Know what doesn't make you happy and stand behind that too.  Then see below when people insist "How can you NOT like hockeysportslotterypokergreenbeansvolleyballrugbyshirtsterrencetrentdarbypaislypastelpolochurchthebeachboys?!"
• You are not one of the crowd.  Whenever someone says you must play a game or sing a song or wear a shirt or show up at an event, and that you must like it and will like it, because 'everyone's doing it,' tell them this: "I am not one of the crowd.  That's not the sort of thing that makes me happy, so I'm not going to do it.  I have a pretty fair idea of what I like and what I do not like, and that isn't going to cut it.  You are quite wrong about me enjoying it, once I've given it a chance, so I won't be giving it one.  Now go away and bother someone else."  And then wait for them to do so, preferably with a blank stare.  This is guaranteed to make you plenty of new friends.
• You are going to make a lot of people unhappy, and you are going to waste a huge amount of time in first asking people what they'd like you to do, and in then not doing it. At all.  It's going to make them angry, so assume that's going to happen and act differently.  Do this: Whenever you're talking to someone, see if you can figure out what they want of you, what would make them happy.  Then you can be sure you're being purposeful about letting them down when you, most times, do not do what you know would make them happy, but which, instead, seems best to you.  When people are angry with you, you need to know that you knew how to make them happy and did this on purpose, rather than that you are a screw up who has no idea how to make others happy.
• Avoid boring, friendless, personalityless people.  They will be desperate for friends alright, but will have nothing of interest to offer a friendship.  If someone bleeds beige, do not become blood brothers with that person on any account.
• You need lots of sleep and lots of dreaming time.  Pay attention to your dreams.  They will tell you things you don't dare know when you are awake.
• For any modern thing you like, go find the roots of where it came from, be it a story, a movie, a book or a song.  What were the influences on the people who made it?  You can be influenced by the same people and do different stuff, dipping in the same well as your favourite stuff.
• If you find anyone smart who isn't a dickhead, talk to them.  They are hard to find.
• Many of the girls you like who won't talk to you?  In fifteen years they will be very, very fat, with butch haircuts.
• Decide which girls in the school you like the looks of and smile and greet each one.  Girls like to be smiled at.  They don't like guys wanting stuff.  Don't want anything they have.  Taste them like a man taking a sip, and then be ready to move on.  Just smile at them and greet them and tell them their fashion choices, hairdo or makeup is working, and that they look good.  And then walk away to show you don't want anything.  Will make them try to be wanted, all the more.
• You live in farm country so you can't be a goth, really, but if you lived in a city, you would be. Goths aren't all satanists either, even though they don't dress like Gap models who are youth pastors.
• The language, clothing and music your parents object to?  They are objecting to nothing deeper than its vehemence, its passion, its colorfulness and its heart-felt directness.  You are living in a church culture of indirect, grey, euphemistic mundanity nested inside a national culture of indirect, grey, euphemistic mundanity  Know that simply avoiding certain words or guitar rigs or drum beats simply isn't going to be enough.  If you are frank or deep, intense, passionate or certain, you are going to make everyone angry and uncomfortable.
• Your kneecaps are just like that.  They will go out of joint if they get the chance and it will hurt.  You don't need surgery and they won't get worse, but they are like that.
• You think a whole lot of things, really, really fast.  You are seeing connections, big picture and relationships between things that other people either are missing entirely or don't see the point in pondering.  This means you talk way too much, way too fast, about way too many things.  The bigger the group you find yourself talking to, the less any one person should have to say.  Talking to people one or two at a time is the way to go, and try to take it easy on them as to speed and volume of thoughts and connections.  They will want you medicated anyway.  When you want your thoughts to slow down, you use TV and books.  That works, but these are solitary pursuits.
• You don't need your glasses to read, so take them off when you do.  Because you can.
• Don't bother trying to like stringbeans or the other vegetables you can't like.  It's not worth it.  
• Don't bother trying to get into enjoying working out in a gym.  That's not going to happen.  Take long, frequent walks, with hills and rough terrain.  Eventually that becomes hiking.  And it gets you off the couch without putting you in a sweaty, humid room full of shallow people stinking and looking in mirrors and making grunting sounds with red faces.
• Bother to floss your teeth once a week.  This will be worth it, once you're thirty.
• apart from your family, pretty much none of the people who are in your life right now will be in it still in five years time.
• People generally don't understand you when you talk, when you think, when you feel, when you live.  You do not have the time to waste in waiting a moment before doing any of those things, hoping someday they will.
• Rubbermaid tubs with lids are awesome.  Better than cardboard boxes.
• Don't worry about becoming an alcoholic should you ever try alcohol and get drunk.  You have pretty much zero talent as a drunk, let alone an alcoholic.  No potential at all, really.  You are too much of a control freak to allow yourself to enjoy anything that much.
•  notice family and friends who clearly enjoy crapping on your Cornflakes time and time again. People who are jogging your elbow when you're trying to steer the car that is your life.  Put up big boundaries they can't ignore and maintain those.  Stop letting them do this.
• nobody's "got" you, so you'll have to make sure you're okay your ownself.
• Guitar.  Get one.  You can learn it.  Do that.
• Don't try to be like "everyone else."  You can't.
• Do whatever you want with your hair.
• God refuses to make most of our life decisions for you.  Don't try to make Him.  You will lose that game of chicken.
• women are different from men in quite a few ways.  They resent us needing to admit we need to remember to treat them differently than we treat each other, but of course they insist upon being treated differently than we treat each other.
• reducing complex issues to supposed black/white, right/wrong questions is idiocy.  There are not only shades of grey, there are also colours.
• do not confuse longing for love.  Connecting is love.
• generalizing is seeing patterns so you don't have to treat each situation and person as something you know nothing about, every time.  It's one of your best things.
• There are leaders and there are followers.  You aren't either of those.