Past
Explanation
The Joke
A person asks their companion, "Are you ever embarrassed by the views and actions of past you?" The companion says "Of course." The first person then elaborates: "That's power! Present me is the past me of the future me, so if I begin in advance to be maximally embarrassing, I will have the freedom to do anything I want." They present two options: corporate promotion of poetry and genius, versus bad poetry and genius. They conclude that clearly they should do the second option. The final panel, labeled "20 years hence," shows someone stranded on a desert island with wreckage, saying "Past me was a goddamned genius."
The comic plays with the common experience of looking back at your past self with embarrassment. The character takes this observation and turns it into a perverse logical argument: since your future self will be embarrassed by your present self no matter what, you might as well be as embarrassing as possible now, thereby giving yourself total freedom. The punchline reveals that this "liberating" philosophy led to catastrophic life outcomes -- but the stranded character still insists past-him was a genius, showing the delusion is self-sustaining.
The Humor
The humor works through a logical chain that sounds almost reasonable at each step but leads to a completely absurd conclusion. It parodies the kind of motivational self-help reasoning that takes a kernel of truth ("don't worry about embarrassment") and extends it to ridiculous extremes ("therefore do the most embarrassing thing possible"). The final panel delivers the ultimate irony: even shipwrecked and stranded, the character maintains that his past decisions were brilliant, demonstrating that some people are incapable of learning from their mistakes no matter how catastrophic the consequences.