Sometimes when I’m feeling the teensy bit nihilistic, I get my septum pierced. Ear plugs too. Not because I’ll look good…I’ll be beyond looks…but it makes it easier for people to recognize my level of wokeness. I’ll pay good money for my wokeness, so I’ll want it to be obvious from 50 paces. I’ll want people to know that the ugly is intentional. The ugly shows you how not superficial I’ll be. How much thought and effort I’ll put into looking aloof. #opticsmatter

I’ll post about the fires in the Amazon and the plastic crisis in our oceans because that is how woke folk do, but I’ll also post a daily photo of the iced coffee I get in a disposable cup. Because conspicuous consumption is dope. #starvingartist

I’ll post the pics of yoga poses in ironic places, like the Arc de Triumph. I’ll post pics of myself at museums, in front of (not next to) large artworks. Because FOMO’s a bitch and you’ve gotta do unto others before they do unto you. Also, it’s a lot easier to pull from someone else’s creativity than to, you know, actually be creative yourself. I’ll go to cultural events like Pride, proudly donning rainbow glitter, because #wokeness…and also that’s where the best photos get taken.

I’ll have very strong opinions. Bookcases full of strong opinions from college. They’ll be expensive opinions. I’ll start sentences with, “I read something today…” when really it was a comedy podcast I’ll have listened to. My opinions will be so woke that I won’t waste energy voting. I won’t subscribe to a single news source. The world’s just too depressing and the news is all #propaganda anyway (not to mention I’ll be an artist and incredibly spiritual {have you seen all my crystals? Here, wait, I’ll show you}).

I’ll save my money for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBONOW, IFC, a couple beauty product subscriptions, several dating apps, and astrology/tarot readings. This way I have something to talk about over #brunch. And Uber’s. So many Uber’s.

And yeah, sure, maybe my day hustle will become my actual job, and the passion that I once had for the thing I will use to define myself as a human being will have petered out into a thing I will say in bars to sound interesting. And yeah, I will keep running into different iterations of me…so many people who do the same thing I do, with similar looks, similar sounds, similar friends, similar lives, similar mediocrity. And I will feel like a fraud. And I will find myself having gross opinions that I lifted from someone else’s IG story or Hasan Minaj, but you’d never know it from my social media. The forced smiles and the curated locations and contrived events and superficial friends. That’s what counts in the end. Because that is what I call #keepinitreal.

And in the end, what does it matter? It won’t be my fault that the world is ending. I don’t even have kids.