Advice from Fake Jaden Smith (Grapeshot Magazine- 2016: Issue 1)

Authors Note: This piece was done in Grapeshot Magazine as a parody, which is part of Macquarie University.

Dear Jaden,

I'm worried about transitioning from high school to university. I don't know if I'm prepared for independence. How can I handle uni life?

-Anne

Hey Anne,

I gotta lay some truth bombs for you. Uni isn't real because it ends with a piece of paper. Its brainwashing! It's not true, it's not real. Learning can't be confined to a classroom, you NEVER stop learning. How do I know that? I’ve been trying to start an acting and a musical career for years, you never get it right the first time (especially when you hang out with Justin Bieber). So learn and do crazy. Break the crazy records; eat crazy food. Have you ever eaten disco crab, a crab made of mirrors? One-day people will think you are revolutionary! Like Galileo. Like Chad Kroeger. Like me.

So what should you do to be crazy? It’s a new year, and remember: the more time you spend awake, the more time you spend asleep. So instead, try and do meditation, and channel your inner karate kid (with plenty of wax too). Look at the mystical and philosophical side of things, and soon you will realise that everything in this world is just so relative. You know time? Relative. Thyme? Relative.

Take this magazine for relativity. The weight of its pages. The intricate binding. The words you are reading now. Everything. How can the magazine be real if our eyes aren’t real? We can’t see our own eyes; does that make us not real? And if that makes us not real, does that mean we only exist in other people’s minds? And if we only exist in other people’s minds, does that mean this world isn’t real? If it isn’t real, does that mean we’re in The Matrix? And if we’re in The Matrix, and therefore, robots and aliens exist, does that mean we have Men in Black too?

(Hang on, I better ask Dad if telling my seeds of brilliance is the right career move. The other galaxies and dimensions keep talking to me about stuff humans don’t understand. Something about the word ‘delusion’… and rejecting something called ‘Scientology’…. and staying away from any movie director with the last name ‘Shyamalan.’)

If all else fails, pretend to be a newborn baby and don't speak; people will think you're the most intelligent being on earth.

- Jaden