The VICE Guide to "Finding Yourself"

Photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg.

When you become more than twenty years old, you have to find yourself. By “find yourself” we mean everything from figuring out why you’re here on this planet to becoming a man/woman to coming out of the closet to being ready for a real relationship. Technically you’re supposed to do it by going to Europe, but for most people it’s more innocuous things like using a vibrator and moshing (not at the same time, just, in general). It’s not what you’d expect. Seeing a therapist, for example, doesn’t do shit, and all acid does is make you go “whoa.” Some people don’t figure it out until they’re 50 years old. Have you ever seen how fucked up parents get after a divorce? That’s because they never read something like this:

1. BACKPACKING THROUGH EUROPE

This has become the Disneyland of finding yourself. I’m not saying it’s not fun to blow tons of your parents’ money riding around the continent on a Eurorail pass and getting w-a-s-t-e-d, but all it does is help you understand the news more when they show maps. Sorry.
PS Make sure you don’t fuck any American guys on tour. They are in date-rape-spring-break mode and will eat you alive. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 4

2. TELLING YOUR DAD TO FUCK OFF AND BEING PREPARED TO FIGHT HIM

You have to have already moved out of the house for this one. Obviously your Dad could pulverize you if shit did go down--—this isn’t about that. It’s about cutting the cord by burning a bridge. After all the dust settles from this fight the next step (and this takes years) is to become his pal. This involves getting drunk with him and realizing he is as shitty as all your other friends. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 7

3. COCAINE

I didn’t used to think of coke as a coming-of- age drug, but if you look at yourself before you did it, and compare that to now, you realize you’re basically a different person; slightly crazier, slightly sluttier, but definitely more found. It’s like this whole Laura Palmer-esque way of feeling badass and classy at the same time. I used to think of it as a scary adult drug and now it’s as irrelevant as a joint or a tequila shot. It is the line you cross into the adult world of drug use. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 3.5

4. ACID AND MUSHROOMS

Supposedly, the reason we experiment with these drugs is a self-exploration via some sort of magical mystery tour that will change the way we think about the world forever. Maybe it helped Timothy Leary realize he was a boring and pretentious fag, but all it ever taught me was that my feet are crying. You can do all the acid and shrooms you want, but you’re fucking totaled when you are high so all you’re learning when you trip out is what this fucked up person is like when she’s really stoned and guess what—she is toasted.
My boyfriend once said that when he looked at himself on acid, he realized what he looked like to other people and he still believes that: “girls don’t like me because I’m handsome. I’m not. They like me like a messy rat guy like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. I wouldn’t have known that if it wasn’t for acid.” Big whup, Allan. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 4, no, 3

5. ECSTASY

Before I went to my first rave, I was an angry punk rocker who hated the whole world and everyone in it. Then I swallowed an E “stamp” (they don’t make those anymore), and an hour later I was kissing strangers and realizing that everything was “all good.” It didn’t matter how stupid everyone looked in their baggy jeans dancing to happy hardcore, they were having fun and “being themselves” and that was all that mattered. I don’t do the drug anymore, but I can still tap into that optimism whenever I’m feeling shitty. That’s a crucial finding-yourself tool. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 7.5

6. DYING YOUR HAIR

Dying your hair is a total rite of passage. At age thirteen, when you realize that the only part of your body you have any control over is your hair, you do as much as you can to fuck it up. This is the first time you feel “different” and maybe even the first time you can rebel against your parents and there’s nothing they can actually do about it. This hair-control realization is huge. If your mom yells at you, all you have to say is, “It’s my body and I can do whatever I want with it!” She won’t say shit after that because she’s scared of you not getting an abortion when you get pregnant. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 7

7. GETTING SLUTTY WITH IT

This is the biggie for girls. That’s why your Mom was so fucked up after the divorce. Shit, that’s why she got the divorce. If you don’t have your slut phase, you are perpetually high school. Not every dude you sleep with is going to want to be your boyfriend, and once you figure that out and ride with it, sex gets a whole lot better. Next thing you know you’re indulging yourself and telling guys how to make you happy and even doing shit like making them wear tighty whities. You know when you start telling guys what to do you are majorly finding yourself. Once you up the ante to buying a few dildos and having a few threesomes and not feeling weird about it you are basically there. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 9.8 (We didn’t give it a 10 because people can sue you if you make it a 100% guarantee, but it’s basically 10.)

8. SNEAKING OUT OF THE HOUSE

I used to love sneaking out of my house. It was fun and liberating and risky. Once you get to that age where making out with cute guys is worth the risk of seeing a ghost or getting kidnapped, you have reached a milestone. You have found the beginning of your preteen self, the era when your parents start to become more and more of an embarrassment. You even close your door now when before you needed a drink of water and a kiss goodnight. Your parents are all dumbfounded and resentful but you’re like, “Later, suckers!” Sneak out as much as you can. I don’t know why exactly, but to this day I believe it made me a better person. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 8

9. THE MAGIC FOUR

This one is only for guys. In order to become a man you have to: 1) break someone’s heart; 2) have your heart broken; 3) get the shit beaten out of you; and 4) beat the shit out of someone. That means: 1) she has to be so fucked up she almost kills herself. Like, doesn’t eat for three days and falls down the stairs drunk; 2) you are so fucked up you have to punch yourself in the head to stop thinking about her; 3) you end up in the hospital with a severely broken nose and some sort of permanent facial scar; and 4) he’s not really moving at the end. You’re kind of just kicking a blob. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 9

10. HAVING A BREAKDOWN

OK you have to have two, actually. When you’re 16 you have to have a complete breakdown in front of your parents where you’re convulsing and crying for no reason. THEN, when you’re about 23 you have to hit an existential brick wall where you realize you’re going to die and not go to heaven or anything. After about three days of going, “Why am I here?” you will figure out if you’re here to fight for justice or worship Allah or entertain people or just totally indulge yourself with as much sex, drugs and attention as humanly possible. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 9

11. WATCHING A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

At first maybe you didn’t really like it, but you said you did because you were supposed to and everyone else said they did too but then you finally did get it. Next thing you know you’re renting The Wall and dressing up as Alex for Halloween. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 4.5

12. MOSHING

It can be scary to mosh for the first time. Especially when you’re a fourteen-year-old girl who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. But fuck it, get hurt. There’s nothing better than a war story from the pit. Moshing is great because it’s so utterly ridiculous, but at the same time so liberating, to just throw your body into a mass of people. It’s like, the music is so good it turns us all into mental patients and retards and we run around in circles and that is AWESOME. It was a very new way for me to let myself go, to not be self-conscious when I dance and fully embrace the music. It sounds so corny and it should, because if you think you are too cool to mosh, you are wrong! Moshing is too cool for you! FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 9

13. THERAPY

You won’t find yourself through therapy, but it is really fun sometimes to talk about yourself for an hour. You can talk shit about all your friends and cry about your ex-boyfriend. It will make you feel better, no doubt. Therapy may also help you understand yourself on a level that may make you not hate your parents so much, or at least realize why you started cutting yourself when you were twelve. But you can give or take therapy. It’s more of a relaxing thing to give yourself, like a massage or a cup of snugglepuss tea. It is good for you, like medicine, but it’s no moshing. FINDING-YOURSELF FACTOR: 4