An All-Encompassing, Insider Gentleman's Guide to Growing Old

LEAVE PROPER PREPARATION FOR YOUR PARENTS WITH REGARDS TO YOUR DEPARTURE FROM THE NEST

"Your childhood now a fountain of fairies," as Lorca or some other dead guy said; this is true, and your parents lived off of this fountain for sustenance. It's a fact: You were their only life, and still are, forever. Thus, you must prepare them adequately for your departure to some poor woman's life. Be sure that you remember to purchase them a nice home in which to sadly spend their twilight years.

This consolation is essential, however small it is; for, of course, nothing in their life could ever replace your presence, your greater, younger, more-good-at-computers spirit that enriched their days and made them whole. The home will remind them of their best, sole accomplishment, which is you, and they can use it to remember you, and pretend that you are still there, always, depriving them of privacy and showing them bad music on YouTube.

A LIFE WITHOUT A MAGNUM OPUS IS A LIFE NOT LIVED AT ALL

My artistic readers, you must remember to paint or write or record your masterpiece; the work that says, for some reason, "this is all that I am." It is preferable that you paint or write or record it closer to the middle than the end, so that you can remain extremely bored and empty for a long time after, and pick up strange meandering hobbies that involve Dixieland jazz or something equally asinine. You cannot exit this world without fame and fulfillment from people that make you angry; get "your message" out there, as much as possible, so that you can watch fat white men say dismissive things about it or use a misinformed reading of it to get a higher grade in their college class.

GO FORTH AND SEE THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

Once you become successful and begin to grow old, it is absolutely essential that you travel the world. There is an entire globe that has, through the 4,000 or so years that it has existed since God made it and the dinosaurs also, yet to be glimpsed correctly. You have to get yourself out there, look at the efforts and miracles of thousands of dead people, and think stupid things about them. You can go to Austria and think dumb personifications of it, such as: "Vienna is a vagrant, because those alliterate," or: "The Asian place seemed interesting and vague; their clothes were different from mine too."

REMEMBER TO RETIRE; THE GREEN SPACE AWAITS YOU

Finally, you must remember to retire. It must be a move from the bustle of the city to a place of quiet and solitude; a quaint, uninvolved natural paradise, where you can annoy animals and plants instead of people.

Here, you will finally relax from being obnoxious and overbearing in highly populated areas. In this heavenly personal place you will sit in your chair, staring at the moon on a clear night, and seeing only a reflection of your big dumb ovular face, nodding in congratulatory affirmation at your unique appreciation of trees and animals that are too domesticated to leave. Sit back in your Shangri-La, uttering stupid things about the sun, about the sky that sometimes has clouds or sometimes doesn't; muse, muse in nature, for you've earned it, you've earned it my friend, you've earned it all.

Thanks to illustrator William "ryorininseven" Cook, who is also clearly wise beyond his years!

– WET BUTT (@wettbutt)