Banal Hemorrhage

One of the biggest tenets when doing continuous improvement work in a company is that unused assets are a waste. One of the big ones, too! A lot of my work was basically Marie Kondo-ing different places in hospitals. I mean, it makes sense... if it's not adding any value (or "bringing joy" in Kondonese), it's just wasting space. Recently, I switched over to being a leader of a business unit so I brought this little nugget with me.  I soon realized why people hoarded their old equipment and supplies. If other processes in the company aren't stellar, you may be waiting a long time for a replacement. People hoard things because once you need them, you have to wait or go through an arduous process to get a new one. And time is money. I want my valuable employees busy, not waiting for a computer! Because I am first and foremost a continuous improvement professional, I am returning any excess inventory my team has collected over the years (to the unceasing chagrin of my...

  The original idea for this comic was different than how it turned out. I imagined Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Piaget  having a drink in a bar, both in  their 70s. Piaget goes, "Have I told you about the stages of human development I've discovered?" and Sartre goes "When do they learn that people suck?" I was going to title the comic "Jean Therapy", because I can't pronounce their names in their native tongues. If I was able to, it would be titled something like "Jeanalyze This". I am very aware that I shouldn't be left anywhere close to comedy, but it shows my process of just having these intrusive thoughts that become comics. Over the week, the idea became more about a baby having existentialistic thoughts when their solipsistic brain was left alone. Is it funny? No. Is it clever? No. But is it of significance? Again, no.  And yet I can't stop.

As a young person, I loved evading responsibility. At one point as a child, that's all I wanted to do, avoid any and all responsibilities. I did pretty good there for a while. Somewhere along the way I messed up and got a few degrees, a couple of 9-5s, a wife and a few dogs. In my mind I'm still running, but in reality, I'm in the quicksand with all of you. The thing that stopped me is that I didn't want to be an abandoner. I know a lot of people don't care, but straight up walking out of your job often leaves a few innocents under duress, and they don't deserve that. As my marriage is teaching me, abandoning my responsibilities means hurting my loved one. And I need to be a better man. I guess to really succeed at having no responsibilities, one must have no one else around. I bet that’s why I love sprawling open-world video games. I can fantasize about having a super important, urgent quest, but choosing to collect leaves for the herbologist or clearing a base...

I've always been interested in mythology. It's often I wonder why the myths and legends from Egypt, Greece/Rome and the Norse get relegated to the fictional status of mythology, but the Old Testament, Buddhism and Islam became religions of current relevance. What made people go like ‘yeah that's too out there, I'll stick with my magic trumpets and the guy who turns water to wine and makes zombies.’ If you’re into mythology, I highly recommend Stephen Fry's audiobook, Mythos . He knows the subject incredibly well for a funny man, and he combines a breezy narrative with minute details around etymology and even disentangles competing narratives.  Learning mythology is one of those few things in this Post-Post Modernism that can make you say, 'our reality could be far worse'. Can you imagine, not only dealing with stupid, greedy humans but also with stupid, greedy deities? Not that crazy, come to think of it, as present day billionaires DO have some supernatural...