2011-01-30
Explanation
This comic contrasts the desires of children and adults in a simple two-panel format. The top panel, labeled "Children," shows a freckled red-haired kid wearing a superhero cape (with a lightning bolt emblem) standing between two other children at school. The caped kid thinks, "I wish I were like everyone else." The bottom panel, labeled "Adults," shows three adults in business attire, and the middle one thinks, "I wish I were special."
The joke captures a fundamental irony of human psychology across the lifespan. As children, those who stand out -- whether through unusual interests, appearances, or behaviors -- desperately want to fit in and be normal, because childhood social dynamics punish difference harshly. The kid in the superhero cape is visibly unique but miserable about it. As adults, the situation reverses completely: people who have successfully conformed and blended into the working world find themselves longing for distinction, uniqueness, and significance. The very conformity they once craved now feels like a prison of mediocrity.
The votey panel bridges the two stages with a third category: "In between..." showing a young man thinking, "Why work at anything? Someone else is gonna be better at it anyway." This adds adolescence and young adulthood to the spectrum -- the transitional period where a person has given up trying to be normal but hasn'''t yet started trying to be special, and instead wallows in nihilistic apathy. Together, the three stages paint a bleakly comic portrait of the human condition: we always want what we don'''t have.