can

An eight-panel SMBC comic. A red-haired child lies in bed talking to his seated father, a bespectacled man in a red sweater vest. The child says, "Dad, I do nothing all day. I'm not special. I'm not interesting." The father, meaning to reassure him, says, "Son, you could be anything!" but then keeps talking, each panel more bleak: "Of course, lots of things could happen, but most don't." "Or anyway interesting things are rare. Rare by definition." "Most things that could happen to you are boring, sad, or both." "Given enough time, probability will crowd out hope. Then crowd out the desire for it." Then he brightens: "But maybe not in your case!" The deadpan child replies, "Please stop trying to inspire me." The father, undeterred and cheerful, ends with, "You can beat the odds! In the literal sense of CAN!" The joke is a father's pep talk that spirals into grim statistical fatalism. Votey (aftercomic): a single panel with a close-up of the child's worried face and the father's speech bubble adding, "You will die before me."