By Claudia Turner

Art by Tabitha Swanson

So, this is the new normal. Under lockdown, we wear our masks, wash our hands, and scroll the days away while waiting for Miss Rona to see herself out. But there’s no need to be lonely while alone: DADDY is putting the social in social distancing for our QUARANTINE issue. 

 ED: If you’ve been lying awake at night asking yourself when DADDY would publish a self-help series, then exhale for the first time this summer. Hshshhshshhhh. Our resident writer/mother/all-round genius Claudia Turner is here to catch you up if you slept through a few too many classes at your own personal School of Life with her brand new how to series for DADDY.

 Ever wonder what old codgers aren’t telling us? Before you’re an old wrinkled bag, don’t you want to know how things really work? In order to make the most of what we have, let’s take a look at what old farts have been trying to relay to us smartphone zombies since the days of Oprah talk show marathons, if only we had put down our remote controls and listened:

Relationships are in control of the person who cares the least.

You see, it’s important to remain indifferent and apathetic during bouts of brainless romance. Vulnerability and compromise sound nice in theory from a self-help book about winning friends and influencing people, but who is going to listen to someone whose emotional state mirrors a ladybug flipped on her back? Your soulmate, obviously, but that’s beside the point. 

Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses.

In other words, your vices, your whining and your lack of self-control will lead you to greatness. Just look at the sun-dried tomato that constitutes Donald Trump. He plagiarized and bragged his way to the top. So if you keep mooching, and being a selfish, lazy slob well into middle age, then everything you have ever valued will disappear and you will be void of adult responsibilities, which tend to take away from beauty sleep and Nick at Nite marathons. This careless, self-involved joie de vivre will pay off at some unexpected point – like between naps and online poker.

But listen, what grandma most wanted everyone to know before falling into an infinite sleep during Dr. Phil:

Don’t lie to yourself.

 Because Mr. Darcy is a fictional character and there is no perfect stranger for the majority of us (nobody is perfect but Patrick Stewart anyway); paradise is only nostalgia telling lies to each uniquely insecure hippocampus; unrequited love is not romantic unless you are thrilled by the prospect of being Ophelia or Juliet or any lover who has died because of an impulsive man-boy. Last but not least, feelings follow behavioral patterns and fridge schedules (because Kummerspeck is a thing and emotional eating is all too real). 

Old or young, everyone is full of shit, especially the leader of the free world.

I hope you will read this and think “well that was a brilliant waste of time” and continue doing whatever it is that makes you uniquely you. There’s nothing a self-help book, a talk show, an Indian ashram, or even the back of a cereal box can tell us to be who we are and being truly who we are is about the best thing we can do for ourselves. So whatever the back of your head reminds you to consider when you’re up early in the morning or late at night is what you need to know. And that’s all there is.