escape-2
Original: escape-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Young man (kneeling before a robed master on a mountaintop): Wise master, how do I escape?
Master: I'm a social ape. I'm obsessed with status. All my actions, even private ones, can be perfectly explained if you assume I'm seeking the esteem of other apes.
Panel 2:
Young man: All my study is to appear smart, all my exercise to appear pretty, my clothes, car, home, my travel and adventures - all to convince others that I am rich and interesting.
Panel 3:
Master: It is easy, my son. Get weird about that thing you're weird about.
Young man: Hm?
Panel 4:
Master: Once, when you were a boy, some synapses misfired, formed an objective pleasure circuit around SOMETHING. Gardening, scrapbooking, bad movies from the thirties, collecting porcelain cows - SOMETHING.
Panel 5:
Master: Make your nest in that closed loop of happiness and be unbound from the unceasing whirl of judgment.
Panel 6 (EVER AFTER...):
A red-haired woman and a young child stand at left; a man sits at a table painting tiny figurines at right.
Woman: What's with dad and painting tiny figurines all weekend?
Child: He is as one with the cosmos.
Votey:
A close-up of the man's face, eyes half-lidded and contented, with a thought bubble reading: "Sweet, sweet paint fumes."
Young man (kneeling before a robed master on a mountaintop): Wise master, how do I escape?
Master: I'm a social ape. I'm obsessed with status. All my actions, even private ones, can be perfectly explained if you assume I'm seeking the esteem of other apes.
Panel 2:
Young man: All my study is to appear smart, all my exercise to appear pretty, my clothes, car, home, my travel and adventures - all to convince others that I am rich and interesting.
Panel 3:
Master: It is easy, my son. Get weird about that thing you're weird about.
Young man: Hm?
Panel 4:
Master: Once, when you were a boy, some synapses misfired, formed an objective pleasure circuit around SOMETHING. Gardening, scrapbooking, bad movies from the thirties, collecting porcelain cows - SOMETHING.
Panel 5:
Master: Make your nest in that closed loop of happiness and be unbound from the unceasing whirl of judgment.
Panel 6 (EVER AFTER...):
A red-haired woman and a young child stand at left; a man sits at a table painting tiny figurines at right.
Woman: What's with dad and painting tiny figurines all weekend?
Child: He is as one with the cosmos.
Votey:
A close-up of the man's face, eyes half-lidded and contented, with a thought bubble reading: "Sweet, sweet paint fumes."
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A young man kneels before a robed sage on a mountaintop and asks, 'Wise master, how do I escape?' The young man explains he is 'a social ape,' obsessed with status, and that everything he does - his study, exercise, clothes, car, home, and adventures - is to win the esteem of other apes and seem smart, pretty, rich, and interesting. The master answers, 'It is easy, my son. Get weird about that thing you're weird about,' and explains that as a boy some misfired synapses formed an 'objective pleasure circuit' around SOMETHING - gardening, scrapbooking, bad movies from the thirties, collecting porcelain cows. He advises, 'Make your nest in that closed loop of happiness and be unbound from the unceasing whirl of judgment.' In an 'EVER AFTER' panel, a red-haired woman and a child watch a man hunched over a table painting tiny figurines all weekend; the child says, 'He is as one with the cosmos.' Votey: a close-up of the man's blissful, half-lidded face with a thought bubble: 'Sweet, sweet paint fumes' - implying his transcendence is partly from huffing model paint.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.