2010-11-08
Explanation
This comic explores the universal human tendency to prioritize short-term comfort over long-term well-being. It presents a series of escalating scenarios where characters acknowledge a serious long-term problem but choose to defer action because of some immediate, trivial preference. A man tells his partner he thinks they are incompatible, but in the short term he would rather not have an awkward breakup conversation. An employee admits he hates working for his boss, but in the short term wants to afford a bigger TV. A person acknowledges that their diet is killing them, but in the short term they would like to eat four pounds of bacon.
The fourth panel features a person looking in the mirror, articulating the core thesis of the comic: they would like to recognize that the long term is made up of the short term, but that would require some mental restructuring. This is the comic's most incisive moment, because it names the exact cognitive trick we play on ourselves -- treating the short term as though it exists independently from the long term, when in reality every short-term choice compounds into long-term consequences.
The comic concludes with a man on his deathbed being asked if he has any words for posterity, followed by a gravestone reading: "Here Lies Steve -- I'll Get Around To It." The votey panel continues the joke, with someone asking Steve if he has a last name, and he replies "I'll get around to it!" -- procrastination so deeply embedded that it extends to every aspect of his identity.
The humor works on multiple levels: it is both a sharp satire of how humans rationalize procrastination and avoidance, and a darkly comic portrait of a life defined entirely by deferred action. Weinersmith is suggesting that our tendency to privilege the immediate is not just a minor flaw but a potentially life-defining one.