Insulation

Insulation.

Make sure to get good grades in high school—you want to get into college, right? Make an impression on your professors; you need their recommendations. Don’t skip class. Attend job fairs and apply for internships. Post updates on LinkedIn. Aren’t you serious about your career?

Get a nice job at a prestigious company and make enough money to live in comfort in a nice apartment in a safe area. Keep savings, so nothing takes you by surprise. Take a couple vacations a year, but only to safe places, and make sure to come back home afterwards. Contribute to your 401(k) so you can retire on time. Bitcoin’s too risky, why don’t you pick some less volatile stocks instead?

Don’t talk to strangers.

Don’t discuss controversial topics, because you never know how people will react. Especially not online! What if your employer sees it? What if you get cancelled?

Only idiots take risks like riding a motorcyle or skydiving or doing weird drugs. You tripped on what!? Are you stupid!?! What about the potential for long-term harm?

Don’t hang out with her—can’t you tell that she’s got issues?

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Each day is a choice.

To soak in the blistering heat of the desert sun. jump into the deep blue. peer over the chasm’s crumbling edge. design rockets and robots and reactors. ask questions, make conjectures, prove theorems. play for keeps. blaspheme freely, pray fervently, always seeking the sacred and most high. look into her eyes and fall in love again and again and again.

To put down what you have and search for what you need.

To remove the training wheels, because you’re ready now, at long last, to let the world take you and knead you and recreate you in its image.

Strip off your insulation. The warmth is all around.