2014-10-21
Explanation
The Joke
A person in what appears to be a therapy session encounters a floating puppet-like figure who introduces itself as the physical embodiment of the person'''s self-perception. The person is initially impressed that his self-perception can fly, but the figure corrects him: "I'''m not flying. I'''m standing atop a heap of nothing, afraid to look down." The person dismisses the puppet therapy exercise as stupid, and the figure responds by noting that the heap just got higher -- implying that the dismissal and denial have added to the pile of unexamined emptiness propping up his self-image.
The Humor
The comic takes the concept of self-perception and literalizes it as a physical character, then uses that character to deliver an uncomfortably accurate psychological insight. The initial joke is the subversion of expectations: what looks like levitation (confidence, being above it all) turns out to be standing on "a heap of nothing" (baseless self-assurance, denial). The second layer comes when the patient dismisses the exercise, and his self-perception puppet points out that the heap just grew -- meaning that the very act of refusing to engage with self-examination adds another layer of denial to the unstable foundation. It is a sharp observation about how defensive dismissal is itself a symptom of the problem being diagnosed.