Reclaiming motivational themes from demotivational memes for the ultimate contrarian experience. Whatever that meant.
Anyway, so I saw this cartoon, and was thus vexed. I get so tired of edgy negativity for edgy negativity’s sake. Especially when the view expressed is flat wrong:
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| Comic by Zach Weinersmith from his Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal site. Not hating on the man or his work, just the attitude here. |
This pictorial representation of a happy moment comes alive every time it is viewed. That the moment is fictive makes no difference; the viewer recognizes the joy in the family running along the beach. The sentiment is real. The sentiment animates the characters we see in the picture. They may have had no real past, but so long as the image exists to be viewed, the father and his two children will live on into the future.
The intended humor is how the caption supposedly demolishes the happiness depicted here. Except that it doesn’t. For me, this cartoon speaks to what remains of the spirit of the little boy within me who feels a sense of the epic in the mundane act of visiting the beach with his family. Who can wring the maximum amount of happiness from a crashing wave, or a bowl of ice cream.
“Less than dead, they never were”? More like, “More than alive, they would outlive their creator, and remind all with eyes to see and brains to comprehend that there is still joy to be had in this life, that for all the terrible things that happen, fathers still run with their children on sunset beaches, making fond memories they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. You could do the same, if you choose.”
Most people don’t, of course, but that’s on them. How are you doin’?
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