I’m tired from being in proximity to a very energetic child. I honestly don’t understand how parents find the energy to raise another being, let alone more than one. Still, I managed to get the new page done, so here it is.

I’ll leave it at that. I hope you had a nice day of remembrance, if you’re an American. If not, I hope you had a nice day in general. See you on Wednesday, god willing.

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Carol should follow this up with “There’s something you can change: We can have the same address.”

He’s definitely a fan of Dirk Gently, isn’t he?

Thomas Blackwell, holistic retail worker.

But he WOULD find your cat.

As someone who once shared Thomas’ “ability” to see the fundamental connectiveness of all things, this conversation resonates with me on a personal level, especially given how I’ve matured since I had that mindset. It’s the sort of mindset one can only have by going out of your way to learn a lot of things without actually experiencing said things, either due to lack of opportunity, inability, or simple fear of failure. Very much a “I could do so much better if I tried” sort of mindset where we suffer delusions that we’re somehow so much smarter than everybody else.

It’s a very human mindset to have, and I love that this comic can explore these things with such honesty.

I’m not really sure I understand the connection you’re seeing here, ironically. I don’t know why you take these two different mindsets to be the same, that is, the mindset of “I could do better if I tried” and “The world has alot of problems that could be fixed/prevented but I am not in a position to do it, so that is both disheartening and frustrating.”

“either due to lack of opportunity, inability, or simple fear of failure.”

But then you follow up with calling it “delusions,” and previously said you “matured out of it.”

Yes, because I learned the hard way that if you give up for any of those reasons I listed, you’re clearly not as enlightened as you think you are, and accepting that is a form of maturity. I see a lot of parallels in Thomas’ behavior over the course of the comic and that self-belief of “helpless superiority” that is largely a delusion of youth.

Chuunibyou as the Japanese put it … Well, I might agree with you.

Aw, have Carol’s freckles gotten smaller today? Different from some comments on the last page I really enjoyed them. They go really well with the rounder features Carol seems to have acquired this latest appearance. I for one hope they get back to being more noticeable soon.

Of course, if that’s to your taste, Jackie. The story is yours and the last thing I’d like to do is make it sound like the public should shape it somehow. Thanks for yet another page in it, it’s appreaciated.

They’re not smaller, they’re just further away. ;)

That last line is surprisingly relevant to what’s going on in Gunnerkrigg Court right now

It IS kind of a leap to go from littering to the end of civilization. I mean, I see the map, but it’s like you’ve folded the corners together to skip a whole lot of stuff in between that should take a few hundred years to get over.

If I remember correctly (and that is certainly not guaranteed,) it took about 6-12 months in Chicago (or was it New York?)

Maybe 2-3 years, now that I think about it. But certainly not a hundred.

Just because the boulder takes a hundred years to reach the bottom of the hill, doesn’t mean we’ll be able to stop it if we let it start rolling.

Heinlein had a similar commentary concerning the state of public bathrooms and civic indolence.

As for small children. My wife and I raised an energetic child and we managed. An afternoon with his 3yo daughter wears us out. Several of my childhood friends were raised by their grandparents. I don’t know how they did it.

I felt Thomas’s words in my soul.

More Dirk Gently, or more Heinlein’s Friday?

Ahh broken Window Theory. Never would have pegged Thomas as someone so passionate about it. I feel like in another life in another time there would be a non zero chance of thomas creating a socialst italy.

Wow is he an ego maniac or what.

I too am amazed at how parents can function when taking care of little humans

I’m curious the connections Thomas sees because I see littering as a symptom of the end of civilization rather than a cause

I’d call it a vicious spiral.

“…because you can’t see the fundamental connectedness…”

“Can’t” or “don’t”?

It seems to me that it’s a skill that she could learn, at least to some degree. She’s a pretty smart cookie, Thomas. Don’t sell her short. It could be that she has decided her mental health is better served by not looking too long into the abyss.

It seems like he means that she currently, not having thought about or studied the problem, in unable to see those connections, not that she is now and forever more incapable of doing so.

*is unable

“For the lack of a rider,…the kingdom was lost.”

“For the lack of a clean, retail shop,…the nation was lost!”

Working in Thomas’, retail shop,…how sad!

Viewing a fraction of the grand orrery is indeed frustrating.

Oh geeze! He can see the strings too??

And here I thought I was alone in the world with this knowledge.

2678 TFIOAT.

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