Dear Future Child and or Children

A letter to my future clones

Hello future children,

I want to start by saying how wonderful it is that you are able to read this. I am glad that you have both the education and ability that the simple task of reading has afforded you. What a wonderful journey you can take simply by taking something I have written in the past, and allowing it to pass through your brain associating it with images and your own experiences. It is truly marvelous.

Now, onto the important stuff: I do not know you yet, and thus it can be hard to give you advice specific to your needs. My hope is that this letter will serve as a catalyst for when you do run into problems, and you can look back at it and use my own experiences to build your own. Because of this, it is as much a letter to me as it is to you. Please keep this in mind while reading.

Every adult will tell you some things that fall into the following categories:

1. Lies
2. Half-Lies
3. Truths

Here is a graph for reference:

I will try to limit myself to the latter 2 options here to give you a fighting chance.

Growing up: While you are growing up, your brain and body will be experiencing an immense amount of development. During this time, you will often feel confusion. Confusion is a great feeling. Do not let that feeling disrupt you. Many people see this feeling as a negative, instead you should try and use it to your advantage. The feeling of confusion comes from simply not understanding something.

If you find yourself with this confusion, you should take the following steps:

1. First learn as much as possible about the subject you are confused about.
2. If you are still confused, please refer to step 1.

You will still be confused, but at least I gave you some advice which should help ease it. Just do not give up and eventually the confusion will either pass, or your interest in the confusing thing will pass.

School: In regards to school, I will be very interested in your thoughts. For example, “What did you do in school today” is not some annoying question that I will ask you in order to make you feel like some lower life form, instead it is a query built to understand how you are doing in life at that moment. Even at a young age when things in school might not be very interesting to me, I imagine that your interaction in those things will be very important to me.

While in school, you will inevitably have the following feelings:

1. Hatred
2. Fear
3. Love
4. Understanding
5. Like
6. Frustration
7. The sudden realization that nothing makes sense
8. The sudden realization that everything makes sense
9. The sudden realization that all of your sudden realizations don’t make sense
10. Girls are cool
11. Boys are cool

You will probably get teased by some people. I am sorry that this is something I cannot protect you from. The best way to protect yourself is to simply realize that the people teasing you probably do not feel as loved as you do. They would like to feel that one day, and when they do they will stop teasing you.

You will have teachers that do not understand why you sometimes stand on the desk. They will not understand that even though you’ve studied the problems in the text book for hours, you simply got a low grade on the test because you can’t get past the feeling of confusion (see Growing up for more information on this).

You will have classmates who are absolutely better at everything than you are. Don’t worry about them. In fact, don’t worry about anyone’s ability but your own.

Come up with your own solutions to problems. Draw in the margins. Doodle in your textbook that I paid way to much money for. Pay me back by being a good person.

Dating: I don’t think I have good advice here. All I can tell you is that everyone is different and don’t take it too hard if people’s differences don’t match up with yours.

Sex is inevitable and a good thing. Make sure you are safe. Wait until college if you really want to have a good time. High School is much easier without having to deal with babies.

Breakups are hard, so in order to get better at handling them, do the following:

1. Date someone
2. Get broken up with

Eventually the pain of being broken up with will subside.

Drugs/Alcohol: People use drugs and alcohol for a variety of reasons. Including but not limited to:

1. Dulling pain
2. Self medicating
3. Loosing up
4. Tightening up
5. Figure out their place in the universe

As with sex, just wait until college. Make sure that if you ever over indulge you have a safe place to go, and remember that you can always call me. If you don’t feel like you can call me, that is probably the time you should call me.

Friends: Sometimes you will meet great friends, and sometimes you will meet not so great friends. Sometimes you will be a great friend sometimes you will be a not so great friend.

Here is how to be a good friend: Stay in contact when your friends need you.

Here is how to be a bad friend: Do not stay in contact when your friends need you.

How to deal with friendship “breakups”.

1. Learn why you and your friend had a falling out
2. Don’t beat yourself up too hard
3. Try to be better in the future
4. Give it a month and try to rectify the situation

Time: The clock on the wall isn’t there to tell you about the future. It is there to tell you about the past. It is there to tell you how much time you have used since the last time you looked at the clock. There are two main ideas here:

You should use time for useful things: Use your time to study the sciences, mathematics, arts, health and wellness.

You should use time for useless things: Video games, skateboarding, reading Star Trek novels (which are great by the way), listening to music that your mother and I will complain about.

If you are using your time wisely you will know. If you have a question about using your time wisely check the clock and see how much time has past since the last time you looked at it.

Getting sick: Occasionally you’ll get small creatures who crawl inside of you and your body will do a pretty good job of keeping them from making you dead.

You should try your best to just rest up and get through it. Usually doctors can give you medicine for really bad stuff. A book will get you through the easier stuff.

Sleep it off.

Winter Gear: Your mother and I have both talked about experiences we’ve had where we’ve refused to wear our jackets. Now that I’m older I have no idea why I did that. It was stupid. Put on your jacket.

Working: A lot of people on tv and books have very glamorous jobs that nobody in real life has. Your first jobs are going to absolutely be something you do not want to do.

I have never made a friend at a job, but you might and that’s okay, but don’t go in expecting to make friends.

No matter what job you are doing, there is a reason for it, so try and do your best.

Eventually you’ll get to a job you really love to do, use this opportunity to take vacations and breaks.

Your Parents: Really we’re trying our best. Your mom might be doing crazy dances at you as you walk into the door, and I might seem isolated or obtuse as to what is going on in the world.

The only advice I have for us is to make sure that if you are going to call us out because we’ve wronged you, make sure that we’ve really wronged you.

That’s all I have for now. Unfortunately I am pretty much just making all this up as I go along.