Center
Explanation
The Joke
A man asks a woman how she stays so centered and grounded. She explains that she has found a lot of peace in removing the concept of a "center" from her life. The man asks how that works in practice. She explains that she goes straight to tasks: if a person needs something, she evaluates whether it aligns with her actual goals, and if so, she does it -- "which is, incidentally, remunerative" (i.e., it pays well). She also handles bad situations by considering the probability that the responsible person is a "total jerk" versus just having made an error, and whether they will eventually apologize.
The man, increasingly uncomfortable, observes: "I believe that's called 'managing.'" She cheerfully confirms: "Yes! That is what I have been doing since kids, seeing it as Zen." The joke is that her supposedly profound spiritual philosophy of "centeredness" is just... competent professional management. She has repackaged basic workplace skills -- task prioritization, conflict resolution, cost-benefit analysis -- as a deep personal philosophy.
The Humor
The comedy lies in the deflation of spiritual pretension. The woman sounds like she is describing a mindfulness practice or Zen philosophy, but she is actually just describing how a good manager operates: assess tasks rationally, don't take things personally, and weigh the costs and benefits of confrontation. Weinersmith is poking fun at the tendency to dress up mundane competence in the language of spiritual enlightenment. It also gently mocks the self-help industry, where basic life skills are often repackaged as profound wisdom.