2011-08-18
Explanation
This comic is a wordless visual narrative in which a child asks his grandfather, "Grampa... how'd you get so old?" The grandfather replies, "Well..." and then the comic shows an extended action sequence in which the grandfather is attacked by two monstrous figures labeled "Nature" and "Nurture." These creatures represent the twin forces that shape human development, here depicted as violent adversaries. The grandfather fights them off in a brutal, prolonged struggle through many panels, getting beaten and battered but ultimately surviving. At the end, battered and aged, he tells the child, "Enjoy your remaining 70 years."
The joke is a dark reinterpretation of the "nature vs. nurture" debate from psychology and philosophy. Rather than presenting nature and nurture as abstract forces that gently shape who we become, the comic literalizes them as physical monsters that attack and beat us down over the course of our lives. Getting old, in this telling, is not a passive process but rather the result of surviving decades of assault from both your genetics (nature) and your environment (nurture). The grandfather's weary advice to the child frames life as an endurance contest rather than a journey.