An conversation with 18-year-old BJR

What would your 18 year old self think of the current version of you? Proud? Ashamed? Embarrassed? Confused? Thanks to breakthroughs in quantum fudge and multiverses we are able to have two BJRs from two different times (1989, 2025) in the same drive through car wash.

How much do I love AI generated images? “create an image of two people sitting in a car, going through a car wash, where one is 18 years old and one is 54 years old and they look like the same person, with the 18 year old dressed like it’s 1898 and the 54 year old dressed like a tech nerd of today”

BJR-now: Well, this is awkward. I’m not sure it’s healthy for the 18 year old version of me to meet the 54 year old version of me, but if Marty McFly survived it, so can you.

BJR-1989: This is what I look like when I’m 54? What would you call this “look”? Sociopath-about-town?

BJR-now: Ahem. Since I theoretically should know everything you do, maybe you should interview me. Though I probably have forgotten a lot of things, like why I found Heather so attractive when I was in first grade.

BJR-1989: Black leotards. Given that’s the first question on your mind, I agree I should take it from here. Maybe I’ll start big: What are the lessons you have learned that you wish I knew at 18 that could help me avoid whatever has turned me into… (sigh) you.

BJR-now: You will learn that:

• figuring out who you are is the most important task in life, and that you never finish it.
• living a life true to who you are is the most important thing.
• people you held in high regard will no longer be your heroes upon deeper inspection, even if they meant well.
• people who appeared to have all the answers had very few.
• everyone shaving off their pubic hair will become commonplace. No joke.

But ignore all that lofty crap, and go buy Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon stock as soon as each one is available. Money will solve all your problems.

BJR-1989: I have become unbelievably sketchy. And, that doesn’t sound practically useful except for the stock tips. I am pretty confident in my beliefs about the world. Will I still believe the same things in 34 years?

BJR’s high school graduation photo. Look out, world.

BJR-now: Take a deep breath…. Today, in polar opposition to what you believed at 18, you believe that:

• the death penalty is not a practical solution to anything.
• gun control is smart and obvious and can’t believe you didn’t believe this.
• anyone has a right to love and marry anyone who is a consenting adult.
• sex work should be legal though you’ll never be a customer (or a vendor for that matter). Yeah, real shame.
• animals should not be domesticated.
• mammals should be allowed to do sex work, if they can speak at least two classical languages.
• capitalism works, but only when the real and total cost of production is factored in
• Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain.
• you should shameless virtue signal in your blog, and it annoys even yourself. You don’t know what virtue signalling is yet, but it’s really annoying.

Now to make things even more confusing, you don’t believe…

• that anything actually has meaning.
• in free will.

You actually think “belief” is one of the biggest problems with the human race — our confidence in silly notions like religion, gods, the human soul, netball, country music, jeans shorts, etc.

So every day, your life is a contradiction — you act against your beliefs, walking the hypocrite’s tightrope between what you believe to be true and what it takes to keep on living as a “productive member of society.”

BJR-1989: (Long pause). That’s a lot to take in, and that last part of it does not make me very excited about the future. How do you not believe in anything?

Oh… You’ve never had a seriously girlfriend, have you? Wait, do you like… women? Did that one time in college…

Sophomore year dorm room: BJR decides the best wait to keep things calm in his dorm during Operation Desert Storm during 1991 is to have a full map of the region and a US flag. Dad was in town for a visit.

BJR-now: Hey, you don’t even know about that because it hasn’t happen to you yet. And this blog post is about you understanding your future, not you revealing tightly guarded personal secrets.

Another surprise for you. Married twice, serial monogamist. And I have a wonderful partner (yes, who is a woman). But you’re on the right track that I am not great at relationships — there are plenty of potential witnesses who could make that case. Some of that came from trying to conform to the rigid idea of relationships that comes from an American fundamentalist Christian ideology, some of that came from my own cocktail of insecurity and narcissism, and some of that from the amount of peanut butter and Tang I consumed in my childhood.

BJR-1989: From how you’re dressed, I am guessing you still wear hand-me-downs. Or are you homeless?

BJR-now: I actually paid money for… oh wait, yeah, just the jeans and the underwear are paid for. The t-shirt comes from a tech company I worked for eight years ago. The socks came free with a veggie burrito at a Mexican place in Sydney called Guzman y Gomez, which is not really Mexican food. You don’t really know about Mexican food, but in about 10 years you will discover the greatest restaurant in the known universe, Taco Deli.

BJR-1989: Sydney… Australia? And, do you use — or did you use a lot of drugs? You are making almost no sense.

BJR-now: I know it must be hard to be confronted with such a shock from your own future…

BJR-1989: No, I’m not shocked. I am completely confused about what happens to me. You do not make any sense, even to a younger version of yourself.

BJR-now: That’s not much of an insult coming from someone sporting a mullet. Or someone who spent a lot of time on the bleachers above the high school swimming pool freaking out about college admissions. But what’s really going to blow your mind is that Australians call college “university.” Crazy, right! And it also turns out that your college choice had a massive effect on your life. But the time on the bleachers did not help a damn thing.

BJR-1989: This conversation makes me want to blow my mind out with something large caliber. Oh, I just realised, since you’re alive in what, 2025, that you didn’t die in 1999 like I predicted in pyschology class last year?

BJR-now: I love how good I am with math. Which the Aussies call “maths!” Crazy, right?

BJR-1989: Okay, can you be serious for a second? Best moments of your life?

BJR-now: My cousin Diane gave me a kidney. There’s nothing else worthy of being on the same list as that.

BJR-1989: I did not expect that. (18 year old BJR looks at the floor for several seconds.)

I hope you lost your original kidneys doing something cool.

BJR-now: Would you consider an autoimmune disorder cool? What about your undiscovered congenital scoliosis? Or hypoglycemia? I know, future you is a total badass!

BJR-1989: Sigh. Normally there’s some time portal closing that makes these time-traveler conversations end, but I’ve heard more than enough.

BJR-now: Honestly, you have an amazing life ahead of you, and you’ve had a healthy balance of life kicking you in the teeth combined with unbelievable luck. Even while hating yourself at times, you have deeply and passionately and physically loved yourself and who you are every step of the way. And it’s so wonderfully annoying to anyone who knows you well.

BJR-1989: I’m going back to my job filling Anchorage Times newspaper boxes in the middle of the night. Bye.

BJR-now: Oh, wait! Don’t go to any NYE parties! None of them! They are all going to end in disaster! And do NOT go outside on the deck at the end of your junior year in college! Bryan…? Bryan?