Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2000, wear kevlar.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, kevlar would be it.
The bullet-stopping power of kevlar has been proven by scientists, whereas the
rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than the ramblings of a hack
Washington Post journalist with no idea what 'gothic' really means.

I will dispense this advice now, whether you like it or not.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth - oh, never mind, you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have been taken from
you by that kid you stuffed in a gym locker because he had weird hair.

If you survive the ensuing onslaught, in 20 years you'll look back at
video of yourself on TV and realize that it was probably the most exciting
thing that will ever happen to you.

Even so, you are not as depressed as you imagine. Life gets much worse than
 this. So go rent 'Pump Up The Volume' and 'Heathers' and get over it.

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to pin all of society's troubles on movies, video games,
Marilyn Manson and trenchcoats. The real troubles in your life are apt to be
things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at
11:21 am on some idle Tuesday.

Do not do things that scare you; society will take care of that for you.

Cry.

Don't be reckless with other people's lives. Don't put up with people who are
reckless with yours. Just avoid them before they put you on their hit list.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're
behind...but there's always plenty of time for that oddball kid who only
wears black to catch up to you, and overtake you. Just worry about yourself.

Remember the insults you receive, and forget the compliments. Nobody really
cares about your accomplishments, only their own, so the compliments are
usually just empty chatter, more meaningless than birds chirping at each
other on the phone lines.

Keep your old books; they're never out of date. Throw away your old
first-person shooters; they're obsolete 3 weeks after release.

Learn to use apostrophe's properly; and semicolon's, too.

Study hard, but don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with
your life... the most unsuspecting people you know in high school will
probably become the heads of large software companies by the time you're 40.
Whereas the jocks will probably never get further than semi-pro ball, in
spite of their attitudes in high school.

Get plenty of exercise anyway.

Be kind to your knees. You'll appreciate them when you're down on them
begging for your life.

Maybe you'll be injured, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll be killed, maybe you
won't. Maybe you'll die in a hail of gunfire. Maybe you'll live to see your
children risk their own lives by going to school. Whatever you do, don't
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are
half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what
other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Unless you own a semiautomatic pistol. When it comes down to a contest
between a scrawny kid with a gun, and a beefy high school linebacker named
Biff, guess who's gonna win? So get a gun, if you can. You'll need it to
defend yourself one day.

Practice shooting. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own back
yard.

Learn how to use the safety, even if you don't have kids.

Do NOT read gun magazines. They will only turn you into Timothy McVeigh.

Ignore your parents. When you snap and take your own life, they'll say that
they had no idea what was wrong with you. They didn't. Ditto with your
siblings. They know nothing about the pain you go through every day. Nobody
understands you but you. So screw 'em all.

Understand that cliques come and go, but there are plenty of good gangs out
there where people like you can get together and play Magic: The Gathering
every weekend. Work hard to conform to the gang standards - because the older
you get, the more you need the people who bought you beer when you were
young.

Live in New York city once, but leave before you get mugged. Live in Colorado
once, but leave before you get killed.

Sigh.

Accept certain inalienable truths: jocks will hate you; teachers will
misunderstand you; nobody likes a kid who dresses in black. And when you do,
you'll fantasize that in your time, people liked you, your friends respected
you, and your president didn't decry school violence while he simultaneously
ordered missile strikes on the women and children of a small European
country.

Don't expect anyone else to care about you. Maybe you have a close friend,
maybe you even have a girlfriend, but you never know when either of them will
turn their back on you. It happens a lot. Get used to it.

Go ahead and mess with your hair; who cares if it looks 85 by the time you're
40? The way things are going, you'll be lucky to live to see 40 anyway. Buy a
black trenchcoat while you're at it. Wear makeup. Pierce your tongue.
Whatever. It's your body.

Be careful whose music you buy, but be patient with those who supply decent
goth music, because there's just not that much good goth music out there.

Violence is a form of expression. Dispensing it is a way of leaving your mark
on the world, stomping it into the ground, painting in ugly colors your rage
and hatred towards the world. Yet despite all this, realize that by
performing an act of violence, you will barely leave a smudge on the world.
You are merely a media spectacle, and in 6 months, you will be utterly
forgotten. So in the long run, you'll be much better off just reading a few
books and trying to accomplish something with your life.

But trust me on the kevlar.

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