Editor’s note: This was originally published in What Youth Issue 1 (which is now sold out) as an intro to Kai’s film Dear Suburbia,. It recently struck another modern chord with us as we thought of all the impending doom out there. And this kind of reminded us that’s it still, in the face of insanity, is OK. Maybe you’ll find something in here. Maybe you won’t. But it’s worth a shot in this bizarre often absurd world.  Sharks keep moving. —Travis

They tell us there were dinosaurs. That big lizards roamed the earth until a ball of fire or maybe icicles made them all die. We’re told that space exists too. That somewhere there are planets and stars and galaxies and it all does something and we should think about it. And there was Jesus Christ, who was holy and He died and then rose from a tomb and saved us from our sins. On Easter. So we find eggs and there are rabbits involved and Australians go to the pub really early that day and we sing at church and some people eat hams — which is just a nice word for dead pig that is cooked. And there’s chocolate. And more eggs. Eggs for this and that. They even tell us we can fry the unborn embryos in those eggs and we can eat them and that’s called over-easy. And eating them over-easy helps to keep us alive — but if we eat too many over-easy it can just as easily lead to our demise. It turns out it’s quite easy to die. But none of us are too sure if that’s a good or bad thing. There are varied opinions.

There are a lot of varied opinions, actually. People do a lot of things. Some people hunt animals with guns and vote for terrorists. And some people sell flowers and love money. Some people play in Norwegian black metal bands and collect puppies and others write poetry and drink martinis. I prefer the poetry, which is as useless as the next thing.

There are bars. Churches. Nature. Happy hours. And it’s all pretty simple and complicated and pointless and beautiful. Have you ever seen a garden? Food just growing on trees! Or the ocean? Fish and crabs and turtles and whales! Or an oil platform? Just jammed into the water out there fucking everything up and making everything work at the same time. There are people doing cutbacks in that water too. Can you believe it? Cutbacks! Which is really just the most ludicrous of all the things to do. But it matters to some of us. We actually pay more attention to it than anything else in life. And nobody can say much about it, because that’s the thing, you never know if you’re doing all this right, so everything is important and you must pay attention to it all because no one and everyone is correct. Ask yourself a lot of questions and think. Think and talk. But if you think too much the people who don’t think will think you’re crazy, which is just contradictory really, which everything is anyway. But in the end it’s whatever you prefer.

Should you save your money or spend it because you’re dying anyway? Enjoy your youth and body and your pretty face or invest in the future and dwell in comfortable obscurity? Build a white picket fence around your castle or take a midnight stroll through somewhere cheerful, like a cemetery? Or a decrepit alley filled with broken glass, and then kickflip that shit on the way to buy a bottle of wine for a beautiful rebel — you can do that because it’s just another interesting boring day all at once. Execute how you will.

Nobody reads books anymore, but you can. Jump rope. Or be naked. Be beautiful. Buy a garden gnome. Procreate. Dance. Sing. Laugh. Fuck lots or a little or never. Or eat eggs. Play in the sea with floating crafts invented in Hawaii or Peru or ancient Greece (no one agrees but what’s it matter? They’re here now!) and fling them around and call it fun. More fun than computers, and complications. And while there are a lot of pretty little things around, it’s all quite disorganized and surreal and really fucking dangerous too. But don’t think about it too much. That’ll kill ya. But maybe that’s for the best. Like I said, we just can’t be sure.

A lot of people are organized. And they live and die too. But they make lists and little boxes. Tick them off. Wake up in the morning and sleep at dark. Watch television, check email. The phone. Keep prepositions before nouns, etc. See where they sit in the grand scheme of things. People just like to know how much they’re liked and accepted. We like everything and we’re sure to say so when we don’t. We all have a say, it all matters. A lot of us are kind of funny though — cutbacks and all that. It’s utterly useless! But it saves us. From what, we’re not sure yet. Fire and ice and dinosaurs maybe. But that’s only part of it anyway. It’s what we do along the way to those cutbacks there that’s really peculiar. We’ll journey long distances and then just spend the entire day fucking around in the sea laughing while everyone else shops for eggs in a necktie.

Do you ever think about jazz? It’s like traveling. Chaotic. Organized and unorganized. Inebriated. Intoxicated. Under the influence. Spontaneous. Often sweaty. Always beautiful. It’s not unlike what we do. All so we can bottom turn and cut back and blow through foreign liquor stores and tollbooths and wake up somewhere new every day of our lives, and remind ourselves that it’s all beautiful and disgusting and musical and whatever we want. Home and the road. Regardless of the waves, weather and worth of anything, at least we have that, something that keeps us moving and moving and it all looks and sounds pretty to us. And you can shout and yell and protest, but really, all we do is move around, enjoy the Jazz and cut back sometimes. But remember the dinosaurs. Remember that space exists. The Jesus. It’s all there too. And it can all disappear at any time. It’s absurd. —Travis