I guess there was a time, maybe around 1973, maybe in London, when the Mohawk stood for defiance. My senior year in high school, the toughest jocks on the lacrosse team gave themselves Mohawks, and ever since I’ve thought of it as an act of intensity and testicular showmanship. But in the twenty years since high school, I’ve come to see hairdos like this one as an admission of utter defeat, and I’ve come to hate people who walk around with overt hair or self-mutilation statements; I think, Hey, idiot, try getting attention from some real accomplishment. I’m not looking at you. But maybe the reason I ended up with this on my head is that I feel that defeat, too, a little bit more lately. I’ve had my ups and downs.

I guess in these past six days, walking to the grocery store, watching the faces of old men as I join them in the YMCA Jacuzzi, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the act of elective self-destruction. Now when I see the heavily tattooed arms of a waiter, I feel a twinge of recognition. It’s a sign, but not of defiance, or of defeat. There’s something about exposing the flanks of your head while the top stays hairy as a way to confess your suffering. Like scars from a real suicide attempt, it’s an admission of desperation and fragility, except that this, thank God, grows out in a few weeks.

And it will be gone soon. But even now, I’ll still forget I have it on my head until I catch my reflection. Then I’ll examine the peach fuzz on the sides and the rooster tail on top, and I’ll smile, the way you smile when you see a homeless person, passed out on the sidewalk, by some chicken bones, in a great Hawaiian shirt._ — Matthew Klam_

7. ATTEND BURNING MAN

8. UNDERSTAND THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY

9. DELIVER A BABY WHILE TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR

10. BE A DRUG MULE

There are tons of neat things about working for drug dealers: You don’t have to pay tas, you never have to wake up before noon, and you can pretty much wear whatever you want. But I’ve worked for drug dealers, and honestly, most of the time it’s a drag. Though you do little more than wait around while other people talk and talk and talk on the phone, those people on the phone can be kind of uptight. In fact, they’re dicks. The pay’s okay, but it often comes in the form of white powder that disappears in a single, fuzzy twenty-four-hour period. And while it made me feel like a badass, I’m not really sure I’d recommend it. The thrill is short-lived, and all you’re left with is the pathetic little story about the time you were young and stupid enough to fly with a brick of coke in your carry-on. And do you really want to be the guy who’s still telling that story when he’s 53?— Alden Gunn

11. CHANGE YOUR OWN OIL

12. REMEMBER WHICH ONE’S MONTANA

13. BIG-WAVE SURFING

Small-wave surfing’s fun, too.

14. CERAMICS!

15. DROP ACID

16. MEMORIZE THE U.S. PRESIDENTS IN ORDER

17. GROW A MUSTACHE

Irony has its limits. And when irony takes the form of bushy hair that grows on your upper lip, it can become quite a nuisance. It’s not the maintenance so much—the brushing and the trimming and having to carefully shave around it. It’s the sight of your hairy, stupid self in the bathroom mirror every morning. (Do you know what it’s like waking up with a hangover and a mustache?) There’s also the shame you feel when you see an old girlfriend or colleague. And the persistent urge you feel to inform every new person that you meet that, hey, you know, the mustache—it’s really just a goof. A lark. Zany, right? After a few weeks, it isn’t the mustache that you loathe, it’s just you. Silly, vain, unfuckable you. But irony, in this particular form, can do more than inspire deep self-hatred. Sometimes it can stink—like six hours after you’ve eaten some organic yogurt or slurped a half-dozen Malpeques. And the beauty part is, you’re the only one who has to smell it._ —Mark Healy_

18. HAVE A KID

Kids will change your life. But what if you don’t want your life changed? What if you like having the freedom to, say, jet to South Beach for the weekend? Which would be great, of course, but it would mean you’d have to skip that dinner party and pass on the chance to spend the evening with four other parent-age couples as they go on and on and on about nannies, and school districts, and poopie!, and how last night one father slept only two hours (seriously, dude, two hours!) because little Max had the worst ear infection. Is it selfish not to bring another child into the world, care for him, and give him a quality life? Maybe. But there are plenty of charitable things you can do with your time. And I imagine Marc Jacobs will get by without selling one more $200 cashmere toddler sweater._ —Reid Bixler_

19. SWIM WITH SHARKS

You don't have to swim with sharks.

My fiancée and I were in Australia, and she wanted to "swim with sharks." I, of course, said hell no. Jews don’t swim with sharks. She begged and pleaded and obliquely questioned my masculinity, so I relented. But we didn’t do it the way she wanted to—which was in a shark cage in the open ocean. We did it my way, in a shark tank up on land. I figured I’d rather they be captive in my world than the other way around. And the sharks weren’t the kind with scary names like great white or hammerhead. No, these sharks were nurse sharks. And that’s because they might as well wear little white skirts to work. They don’t eat people. In fact, they were completely nonchalant. So, after our jaunt with the nurses didn’t quite ignite my ex, she decided she wanted the great whites in the open ocean. She actually said, "Isn’t that something you want to do before you die?" I answered, "The list of things I have to do before I die doesn’t include things that might actually precipitate my death." So I called off the wedding. —Michael Seitzman

20. VIDEOTAPE YOURSELF HAVING SEX

So you want to join the classy, classy ranks of people like Tommy Lee, Paris Hilton, and Colin Farrell? Hold up. Did you ever stare at a television and blurt out, "Why would the Nazis film their atrocities?" Or "Why didn’t Nixon just burn those tapes?" Do you see a pattern here?