Be Fickle

Change your look, change your job, change your apartment, change your art, change your socks (really, it’s gross). Change your lover; your lipstick, your coat, your curtains, your entire belief system. Cling hard, hasty and briefly to everything. Don’t commit. Remain an amateur at life. Don’t do anything long enough to get good at it or known for it; this could overextend your young, vain ego and send you hurtling into full-blown narcissism. Toeing the line between vanity and narcissism is worth the effort.
Be a jack of all trades. It’s the new renaissance, after all. It’s never been easier to call yourself anything and have the website, business card, shoes and haircut to back it up. Be an artist, writer, life coach, musician, healer, blogger. Be indie, punk, preppy, grungy, mod, hipster. Throw yourself into each of these identities and waste a year or so cultivating the image. Then, just when it feels comfortable and people have started to identify you this way, change. Re-brand. Constantly. Funnel all of your time and money into the accoutrements of each image and then ditch them once you move on. You can always sell your camera, rock tumbler, sewing machine, Tarot cards, ukulele, blow torch anyway. But you wont.

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Follow a Band

Not a big band. I’m talking about living for some small scene that no one’s heard of…Yet. Become consumed with a local band with any bit of a following that boasts attractive yet accessible band members who are featured routinely in the local free paper. Romanticize their talent and convince yourself that by going to all of their shows and partying/sleeping with them that you’re part of something big, on the ground level. Spend your time between shows shopping for ironic outfits and procuring illicit drugs to cement your allure.
Just know that somehow the whole scene will blow up and they’ll take you on tour with them to remote Eastern European locations (not to mention the on-stage shout outs and the liner note thanks). Plan on how you will someday slip into casual conversations, “Oh, I used to hang out with Pony Mountain way back when in Baltimore…” winning the respect and admiration of all those around you. It’ll be easy to convince yourself of their impending stardom as you’ll never hear the band sober or during the daytime. Plus, you have absolutely nothing else going on.