Hello. My name is Francis. I am a writer and designer. Welcome to my blog. I hope you become friends with the voices in my head.
What I Would Tell a 15-Year-Old Me
January 2017
Twitter had a #WhatIWouldTellA15YearOldMe hashtag going on and it made me wonder what I would be able to tell a largely ignorant, mildly seasoned version of myself if I had more than 140 characters to give him.
Hi, Francis. Let me tell you a few things I would like you to know when they’ve invented time travel before I die. You never liked the winding introductions so let me give it to you straight up.
I want you to know that your priorities will change and you will find that you will no longer like the things and people you used to, largely because you will grow out of them. But also because you will come to understand that they were petty and small and there are bigger things in this world which you are meant to care about.
Know that you will be wrong countless times. Even now, I am still wrong about so many things. But love those moments, more than you should love being right. Because growing up is all about contradicting yourself and it is through these contradictions that you will come to understand all these things that you believe.
It’s okay to be a little weird and a little different and a little out of place. But don’t be too weird to be unconditionally misunderstood or too different to be unable to find common ground or too out of place to no longer belong in this planet that you will eventually vow to fight for. You are unique and maybe a little strange, but you live with now-seven billion other people too.
I promise you, Francis, that even if you hate the world right now and the people in it, even if hating it burns in your soul with inexorable passion, eight years later and a lifetime more, you will come to love it with all its flaws and you will love it even more so inspite of them.
The world is many times wrong and a lot of times evil, and it’s sad and frustrating. But those are only the edges of its definition, because the world, this world—at a distance, in its entirety, in the gut-wrenching silence of the universe—is surprising and delightful and is a beautiful, beautiful place.
