Good Advices

I'm probably way late on this, but I was pointed in the direction of Arcade Fire's viral video The Wilderness Downtown (which I must point out, takes Google Chrome to run properly and is a freaky mess of conflicting windows in an "I went to Art School and Film School and you didn't" kind of way).

The video uses Google Maps to show you the address you specify, which is supposed to be the house you grew up in as a child. Which it does, and I can even see my Dad's truck parked outside the house where I grew up and the pathetic mess the house across the road has turned into over the years. So, for coolness factor, it's pretty neat, even if I don't really get all the fuss about Arcade Fire. I think I'm supposed to, as a mid-thirties New Wave kid who likes her share of current hipster bands and old school irony, but I never really got all the fuss about Joy Division or Kate Bush in the '80s and '90s, either. *cough* I digress.

At the end of the video(s) (still not sure about that one, since there were like 10 separate Chrome windows doing their thing at one time all on top of one another - it was a browser love-in of massive proportions), you're supposed to write a postcard to your younger self, the self that grew up in that house address you plugged in five minutes earlier and said "Wow! Mr. Harrison needs to mow his damn lawn!" about. So, I thought about it, and I decided to tell the younger me the one thing that all kids need to hear growing up, and few ever do:

Don't worry about what other people think of you. Just be yourself, as hard as you possibly can, because you're awesome.

Even if it isn't always true, it damned well ought to be.