bully
Explanation
The Joke
A bully is hitting a kid and taunting him with "Why you hittin' yourself?" -- the classic schoolyard bully move where the bully grabs the victim's own hand and uses it to slap them. But then the bully says something unexpectedly philosophical: "But jokes hitting me together -- if you consider enough to be yourself, then we are one." The bully is suddenly invoking a deep metaphysical argument about the nature of self and interconnectedness, suggesting that if you expand your definition of "self" broadly enough, the bully and the victim are actually the same entity -- meaning the victim really IS hitting himself.
The final panel shows the two embracing, with the caption "A thought you'd never realize," suggesting this absurd philosophical revelation has led to a genuine moment of connection and reconciliation between bully and victim.
The Humor
The comedy comes from the jarring collision of two completely incompatible registers: the crude physicality of schoolyard bullying and the lofty abstractions of metaphysical philosophy. The bully's taunt "why are you hitting yourself?" is one of the most mindless, annoying things a kid can do, but the comic reframes it as a genuine philosophical question about the boundaries of selfhood and non-duality. The absurdity is heightened by the fact that this pseudo-profound reasoning actually works, leading to an emotional reconciliation that no real bully-victim interaction would ever produce.
References
The bully's argument echoes ideas from various philosophical and spiritual traditions about the interconnectedness of all beings, including concepts from Buddhism (non-self or "anatta") and certain strands of Western philosophy like monism, where all of reality is considered to be one unified substance.