Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 27, 2012

An Essay for Goldenroya, as inspired by PuddleglumAuthor’s note: If you didn’t read yesterday’s comments and have never read any of Puddleglum’s postings, the following will make no sense. If you did read yesterday’s comments and have also read every posting that Puddleglum ever wrote, the following will still make no sense.

In today’s Calvin and Hobbes strip, Bill Watterson’s secret message to his elite readers is about life itself. In life, we cannot sit motionless forever, paralyzed by fear. But we also cannot simply coast through our lives without continually steering around obstacles, or life will become nothing but a slippery slope.As we speed through life, many obstacles will spring up in front of us, like…….. like trees! Yes, towering obstacles that hang over our lives and often branch out in many directions. Obstacles whose bite may be worse than their bark if we should collide with them along life’s path. Each one, a deeply-rooted, unyielding obstacle that always stands firm – an obstacle that never packs its trunk and leaves.We must navigate between things like the tip of a wedge.With risks, we must know which bets to hedge.We must know when it is safe to live life on the edge.But we must carefully stay away from the ledge.- Burma ShaveAnd as we approach the end of life, we may find ourselves going downhill faster and faster. At the very end, we may even feel like we are skating on thin ice, facing a cold reality. But when we reach the climax, there is always the possibility of one final breakthrough. It is important then that we not allow ourselves to drown in our success. As Calvin’s parents have repeatedly warned him, “stay out of the Watter son.”Questions?

I always lost that fight. I ended up with rips,wricked sled and wet feet. Pure love.

It does appear that way, Calvin.

I’m surprised Calvin is hesitant upon doing a death defying stunt.

Click here: Peanuts (1958)

So without his alter-ego beside or behind him, Calvin goes introspective and not downhill? See what you/ve done now, Hobbes?

@ Popeyesforearm, I left a message for you on yesterday’s strip.

Nothing freezes fun more than examining the risk prior to the adventure.

hehe! Where’s Hobbes?

Sometimes “No comment.” is the best comment of all.

It wasn’t the first time, Calvin, nor will it be the last.

No Hobbes, no rush. Know Hobbes, Know the rush!

Those voices get louder as you get older.

Better his brain, than his girlfriend!

This just in———Goldenroya still typing—-will submit rebuttal comment 28th of Jan. 2012——when finished——-end.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I know the feeling. Mine does that all the time, too.

When has Calvin ever listened to his brain?

Oh, Calvin! My first chuckle of the day…….and it was SO unexpected.

Hi JoanHelen. Actually, I wrote this for Goldenroya’s enjoyment (not to mention Puddleglum’s). I enjoyed the clever wording in Goldenroya’s posting yesterday.I hope you are having a good summer in South Africa.

If your brain kills you, is that murder or suicide??? (Apparently his brain doesn’t believe in self-preservation.)

<< witewater said: @Hobbes…. It makes me wonder if you have any more puns in the oven. >>Hi witewaterNo, I’m afraid that’s the end of this batch. These were all that I could cook up, and some of them were only half-baked.

The name used to be “formerly known as…”

@bluram & Dogsniff

They say people who commit suicide never regret it.

“Go ahead down. You’ll miss all those trees.”…or all but one!

Calvin should make Hobbes to have the first try.

“He who hesitates is lost”, but “haste makes waste”.If Calvin makes the wrong decision, he’s going DOWN!

“My brain is trying to kill me.”That would be mindless. It’s sort of like “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.

If you make a ‘rash’ decision, it’s like handling “Poison Ivy”.

Agreed, and thanks for saying it, regardless of whom it is.

So you agree. I’m glad you (and others) can see it. :)

What follows is inspired by Hobbes:Life presents many obstacles. Some are challenges to be accepted and overcome to a successful conclusion. Others are desperately dangerous and utterly risky, and should be avoided at all costs lest there be a ’dead’ly conclusion.

@Goldenroya I went back and read your comment and… wow how mean can you get?

@Hobbes,You’ve combined all the ingredients and really stirred things up. I’ve read yesterday’s comments and everything that Puddleglum ever wrote “and still it makes no sense”. :o)No, I’m kidding; I thought it was the right blend. I’ve tried to ‘rise’ to the occasion; it’s the ‘yeast’ I can do. I hope it all ‘pans’ out and doesn’t fall flat. It would be the ‘icing’ on the cake.P.S. Some people don’t like frosting, though, and I’m one of them, but that’s in a literal sense.

@JoanHelen,You get the credit (accolades) for saying “stirring things up”, first! I’m not trying to steal your thunder. ‘Rolling’ On the Floor Laughing! “Rolling like thunder…”

Awwww, Don’t worry Calvin.

Where’s Hobbes today doesn’t he normally ride on the back?

xxx

Oh he’s still doc white. He just wears a tuxedo now.

Hi mythreesons. I don’t know, probably 45 minutes. I wrote it in maybe 20 minutes and then made some changes and additions. So I don’t have a lot of time invested in this one. Some of the ideas occurred to me yesterday, so you can’t really put a clock on it.

Where’s Hobbes? He’d talk Calvin out of it.

I think Calvin’s genius level brain is tired of being cooped up in a body that simply has to do stupid things. It is aiming for his death in a firm hope for reincarnation, possibly as a certain stuffed tiger.

doc white is as formal as he gets now. He may have been known formerly as Doctor White. Gotta love retirement!

So much aims with dubious ending!

LOL, usually my “brain’s been trying to kill me” via self-critical, fear-based talk. Definitely need to take more leaps of faith albeit not reckless ones. Thanks, Calvin, for reminding me. :)

A big thumb’s up on that one Calvin. Mine all too frequently won’t let me go to sleep easily, either. Just wait until you discover coffee, whose primary stimulant ingredient is caffeine, a primitve form of speed. Then you’re gonna go faster than you might want….

where’s Hobbes?

@massha: I’m withholding judgment on Goldenroya, because I thought that her comment yesterday was tongue-in-cheek, in response to the tongue-in-cheek first half of my posting, to which she was replying. But some people clearly thought she had been attacking me. Perhaps Goldenroya can clear this up, if she sees this posting. Regardless, her posting was very clever and I was amused by her creativity, which is why I responded with my own creative version today, for her amusement. Communication on this site becomes confusing at times, especially when posters are using subtlety.

I hear ya Calvin!

I didn’t see it as an attack, merely a statement of the obvious. We don’t need a daily dose of explanation of C&H regarding the ‘deeper meaning’ of what Watterson was presenting us with. As goldenroya stated, we don’t need “someone trying to tell the artist”, or the rest of us,“what they meant by their own creation.” You prefer to see such statements as attacks. They aren’t. They are opinions to which each of us are entitled. Please stop playing the martyr. It’s only a comic strip.

@rogue53: Your negative comments about me are highly repetitive, some repeated perhaps 30 or 40 times so far, beating a dead horse. I have not written a “daily dose” of deeper meaning in months. I will probably not do it daily in the future either, but I will continue to do it when I think that I have something to say that other people would like to hear. Your negative comments will have no effect on that.

@ Hobbes: Keep those witty, insightful, inspired vignettes/comments coming!! It’s not everyday I read interesting prose!

“I responded with my own creative version”….my, aren’t we impressed with ourself. I think I’ll start the eye rolling and gagging now.