Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 31, 2023

I don’t feel like paying my taxes anymore.

There’s a word that describes Calvin in this strip: Nihilistic.

So that’s why Calvin doesn’t try in school.

It seems that the current thinking suggests that, instead of collapsing, the universe will eventually evaporate into pure energy and nothingness, or something like that. Come back in another 30 years and we’ll discuss…

hahaha now why does that make me feel better?

I see that Calvin is a fatalist—like me.

That motivated me to have a second oatmeal cookie. I don’t put just raisins in, I put in chocolate covered raisins. Secret recipe……

I remember in Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos that “eventually there will be that last perfect day on Earth.” When, Carl? Please let it be tomorrow!!! I mean, come on… could you do two days? Maybe a month or even a year??

It’s a sad fact of young Calvin’s existence that ordinary people like Miss Wormwood and his Mom just don’t appreciate such musings!

Hmmm, I wonder what mischief Calvin needs to explain away?

The Big Picture is one of my favorite strips on Go Comics. Thank you, Lennie Peterson!

I’ll drink to that!

BUT, Calvin, while you’re here, make the best of it and do your best….

It puts a Good Day in even better perspective. Carpe Diem!

All we are is dust in the wind. Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives

It’s too bad we’re unable, with our limited brains atop our miniscule collections of star dust standing on our tiny speck of a planet floating in a vastness we cannot comprehend, to see that our largely self-created troubles are trivial in relation to the universe, time and nature.

Well life isn’t totally pointless but there’d be a lot less war if people did understand just how insignificant we are in the universe.

Newsflash, kid… None of that is gonna happen in millions of years!! Quit find excuses to not do your homework!

You have a point, Calvin.

There are answers Calvin, ‘seek and ye shall find.’

Looking at the big picture is kind of useful to do when you messed up or when you’re nervous. The outcome of today’s test/job interview/… won’t matter at all in 1000 years, when you’re long dead and very likely forgotten (well, if your screw-up is so big that you won’t be forgotten in 1000 years, then you really messed up) and you’re not the first one to flunk a test/job interview/…, so there’s really no reason to be nervous.

One of the most influential books in my life has been “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. It is short, and it is easy to read although it is not easy reading.

In the book Frankl relates his experience in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and how he coped with the experience. Instead of a “dog eat dog,” “look out for number one” attitude he found compassion for his fellow inmates.

Humanity existed and survived even under the most inhumane conditions.

I don’t care how bad your day is going, it’s probably not nearly as bad as a typical day in a concentration camp.

Exactly correct, Calvin. That’s why life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose if God does not exist.

True, Cal. No matter how bad the day, it can get worse.

Calvin’s right, I may as well have a donut with my coffee.

Diet, schmiet … I’ll have a jelly cruller, please!

If there’s no grand plan, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Because that’s all there is: what we do right now.

Our business motto, YOU do not need to die today….we will WAIT!

I’m pretty sure the only people who can really think about the “big picture” are folks with food in their bellies and time on their hands.

Things can always get worse, Calvin. You may have to write a story about it.

“But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.”

- John Maynard Keynes

The big picture doesn’t apply to humans since we won’t be around. it’s just interesting cocktail conversation

Exactly, Calvin! Nothing matters, so make the best of it all!

“Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.” – Mark Twain

And to think of all the wasted time reading Calvin and Hobbs if the universe is going to explode.

If only living another day has no meaning, then a million days would have a million times zero meaning, too. The only way eternity has meaning is if every moment has meaning. And that’s true no matter how long you live. Period.

A real Calvin ‘truism’… “Well, it put a bad day into perspective.”

George Carlin was WAY ahead of his time when he did his skit about the Earth and Humans. “The Earth is not going anywhere, folks… WE are ! ’ ‘The Earth has been here for 4.5 Billion years and Humans have been around for maybe 200,000 of those years. A minor evolutionary cul-de-sac.’ ’Mother Earth is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas…”

Freedom Caucus nonsense at its finest!

I don’t see immortality giving you any reason to care, either. Maybe try finding a reason. There are some out there.

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you shall say, “I have no pleasure in them”. Ecclesiastes 12:1

Atheism sucks. ;-)

Does this have something to do with “The Noodle Incident”?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Calvin doesn’t use this realisation to try and get out of doing his homework.

All of this coming from the kid that HAS to watch television.

Life’s a beach, Calvin. And then the stars align and the Great Old Ones eat you.

When I first heard about the pointlessness of life I thought about it for a minute or so and decided, “Oh well.” I’ve grown to like it over the past 70 years. My 7 year old self was right.

Don’t ever think about it when you are feeling morose. I did a real error on my part. We don’t exist for the long run we exist for our lifetime. Calvin is such a nihilist here.

Sometimes ‘the big picture’ is what we think the world should be. Or for Calvin, an excuse to be lazy.

To balance the gloominess herein presented, I was thinking of reporting my day, it is evening now.

I arose and enjoyed a simple Breakfast. Checked the gocomics to see what the gang was up to. My honey and I went to the market, got some fresh, tasty food. Upon returning home, I did some painting on the house. We had lunch, a nice lunch. Afterward, I observed two young hawks, circling above the yard. So beautiful. I tended to my plants around the yard and was saddened by the absence of honeybees. The first Asian Lilies have blossomed, brilliant Red. Daylilies are preparing to explode in blossom. I enjoyed my puttering, as an old panda will. And then, Supper, simple, but good. Checked the news feeds, world is OK, not great, still OK.A few more hours fiddling around on the web and then we sleep. A pretty good day, all things considered.

Perhaps the secret to a happy life is to appreciate what you have?

It’s not that Life is short, as much as, Death is so long.