They want to build a giant artificial system, and Google believes the first artificial intelligence will be a supercomputer based on the neuron activities of the hive mind of humanity with billions of people wired into the internet exchange (holy shit), and so all of our thoughts go into it, and we’re actually building a computer that has real neurons in real time that’s also psychically connected to us, that are organic creatures so that they will have current prediction powers, future prediction powers, a true crystal ball. But the big secret is, once you have a crystal ball and know the future, you can add stimuli beforehand and make decisions that can control the future. And so then, it’s the end of consciousness and freewill for individuals as we know, and a true two-point-o, in a very bad way, hive mind consciousness with an A.I jacked into everyone, knowing our hopes and dreams, delivering it to us, not in some PKD wire head system, where we plug in and give up our consciousness because of unlimited pleasure, but because we were already wired in and absorbed before we knew it by giving over our consciousness to this system our daily decisions that it was able to manipulate and control into a larger system. There’s now a human counterstrike taking place to shut this up before it gets fully into place and to block these systems, and to try and have an actual debate about where humanity goes, and cut off the paedophiles and psychic vampires that are controlling this A.I system before humanity is destroyed.

The paedophiles, at whatever level, they rule the devil, whatever you want to call, this interdimensional thing, which gives them advanced off world technology, the fallen one, that’s out of this world, is giving them advanced knowledge on how to construct these systems that have already been used before on other populations. That’s Satan. Satan became something, that you know, the stupid preacher tells you about, who’s totally controlled or something you read about in the news or TV, but this is an interdimensional force that wants to influence us to build something that absorbs us and kills us, rather than the divine free will we are given to build something much better and empowers the species so the species is now making a decision about its entire future. I know from looking at all the data, researching it, studying it, watching the enemy, that's the big decision that humanity now has before us.

I know that this is going to sound incredibly autistic, but I cannot function in social settings unless I imagine myself as a big guy. No, I don't go around saying "for you" or move like a big guy or anything. I just feel myself with the overall demeanor of the big guys. I can pass off as a normie well with this.

I choose big guys that already compliment my personality. My main 3 are Dr. Pavel (When I'm feeling quiet but confident), CIA (When I'm feeling a bit smug/cocky) and Bane (When I'm feeling a bit edgy). I also have a rotating list of big guys that I can use. I've done Smee, Maiman, Button-lee, Masketta Man, Juan Ovyu, Brother, etc...

But my problem is, I have a Christmas party with my co-workers tonight, and I'm not sure which big guy I should be. I want to be a bit more outgoing and talkative than usual, but not TOO much. I had a bad experience with Ahyred Gunn this spring, when I got a bit TOO confident, so I don't want to use him. I'd like to try a big guy listed on the flight plan, but I'm not sure which once. I like SIR?, but I feel like he would make me come across as an autist. I was actually thinking about Dr. Pavel, but not saying anything him a bit.

Do you guys have any ideas for a big guy that would be sociable and confident, but not too much so?

Haha, my friend you are quite mistaken. Your impressions of the scene are that of the unintelligent and common man. I have analysed the opening scene of TDKR for over 10,000 hours, every nuance of the scene is well documented in my mind and I know, full well, the true meaning of this masterwork of cinema. I will outline it concisely and briefly for you now:

>Bane: "No one cared who I was until I put on the mask."

By this Bane means that he was a nobody until he took on the persona of Bane, the reputation that surrounds him is what has made him infamous. The "mask" is not the respiratory device that pumps him full of painkillers, the mask is his image as a dangerous individual known the world over for his exploits. From this we can draw parallels with Bruce Wayne and Batman, the mask is an important theme throughout.

>CIA: If I pull that off will you die?

If I remove the mask, if I expose you as nothing more than a man will it destroy the essence of what you are?

>Bane: "It would be extremely painful."

It would be a traumatic experience to abandon what I am, an existential crisis of sorts that would be difficult to recover from.

>CIA: You're a big guy.

You're an important person, your reputation is large and your deeds are noteworthy.

>Bane: For you.

For you I am an important person, you are an agent of the CIA who has been actively hunting me. Our importance to somebody, our stature, our largeness is defined by the effect we have on them. To the average person Bane is not a "big guy", but to this agent he is large indeed.

The Japanese ethos was warped forever by the atomic bomb attacks during WWII. Millions of Japanese men, women, and children were forced to come to terms with the idea of an overwhelmingly powerful entity outside of their control that could wipe them out of existence without warning using unspeakable weapons. They did this, for the most part, by exploring the idea in fiction. Godzilla is one example. Anime is another. If the United States of America were to deploy nuclear weaponry against Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and France, chances are the same thing would happen again: More Godzillas, and more anime. Do you think the world can really handle six animes? In the 1980's, United States President Ronald Reagan developed an idea known as "Mutually-Assured Destruction" (MAD). This philosophy stated that war with Russia would not happen, because there was no way to wage it without both countries being destroyed. I see this same situation today. We cannot nuke more countries for fear of mutually assured destruction when they create more anime. Thank you for your time.

Hi every1 im new here in my garage with my new LAMBORGHINI!!!!!!! holds up️ spork What the fuck did you just �fucking say about me, you little good shit you little good shit you little good shit? shut you the FUCK UP F*GGOT teleports around and shoots beams at you I’ll have you know I graduated of my class in the Navy Seals️️, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret RAIDS on Al-Quaeda, and I have over confirmed bookshelves. thats ️ some impressiveshit rightth ere right️there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) isn't it? has anyone really been far even as decided use even go want to do look more like️up here in the HOLLYWOODHILLS? I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the sniper in the entire HOLLYWOODHILLS armedforces. my name is katy but u can call me t3h PeNgU1N oF T41 LoP3Z️️️ lol…as u can see im very randomaterialistic️️ You are NOTHING to me but just another fuel️unit targetyou. I will wipe you the fuck out️ with KNOWLEDGE the likes of which has never been seen b on this Earth, mark my fucking wrds. You think you can get away with saying that good️shit me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. You! kicks you from behind Are! teleports in front of you and uppercuts you into the air Just! flies into the air with flaming spiral uppercut A STUPID TROLL! As we speak I am contacting my SECRET network of MENTORS across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare 4 the ️storm️, maggot.

The ️storm️ that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. thats why i came here, 2kill random ppl on the internetz … im years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) I can be anywhere, anytime️, and I can kill you in over sevenways, and that’s just with my bare hands. i like 2 watch invaderzim w/ my lamborghini (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO ＦＵＮ ＴＯ ＤＲＩＶＥ ＵＰ ＨＥＲＥ ＩＮ ＴＨＥ ＨＯＬＬＹＷＯＯＤ ＨＩＬＬＳ!!!! shes random of course but i want meet more random ppl like they say the more the merrier!!!! hits you with flame uppercut and grabs your head and throws you down to the ground NOW DIE FAG!!! DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again ^ hehe…toodles!!!!! Garfield leans towards Jon. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed️ combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal️️ of the United States Marine️ Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent️, you little good shit. Jon slowly sticks his hand into the pasta dish. As he lifts his warm hand out of the lasaga, he holds a large clump of pasta, sauce and cheese. He slowly brings the lasaga towards Garfield's mouth who ate all the lasaga. If only you could have known️ what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re ️paying the price, you goddamn idiot. crashes into you with meteor slam attack and kills you heh... another channer falls to me.

I will shitbookshelves all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo. "i ate those food" Garfield replies. Jon then inserts the lasaga into Garfield's mouth and proceeds to eat the rest of the stray lasaga in his hand. "this lasaga is great, Jon." Garfield says. Time for something a little different ️️if i do ƽaү so my selｆ i say so thats what im talking about ri️ght there Jon grabs another glob of lasaga. He reaches behind Garfield and slowly inserts the fuel unit into his anus. "do you like that you big fat cat?" Jon questions. Garfield purrs with joy. "thank you Jon for this wonderful time" Garfield says. At the entrance of the door to the kitchen, a silhouette of a dog appears. A quiet mumble is heard but inaudible for the man and feline to hear. "bOrf" the dog mumbled. mMMMMᎷМ НO0ОଠＯOOＯOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ love️ and waffles and CUMMIES you little good shit,t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m Psssh, notting personnel, kid teleports away

Mechanical pencils. When I first started using a mechanical pencil, I realized it wouldn't wear down like my regular pencils did. Instead, I could use it indefinitely, and so in that time I grew attached to it. I even named her - Peggy. Eventually, however, I lost her, and so I found a new pencil.

Over time, I would continuously find more pencils abandoned on the ground, and bring them under my care. Each one of them given a distinct name and personality by me. Our relationship mirrored that of a child and their stuffed animals. But in this case, the pencils actually had practical purposes. I like to think of it as an orphanage for abandoned pencils. That is to say, I don't buy pencils; I take on abandoned pencils and give them a home and a purpose.

My collection has grown quite large. In fact, I take a yearly photo of them to archive them. Here was this year's photo. From left to right, their names are: Amber, Fluorina, Tess, Lexi, Jan, Abby, Liliana, Crèmula, Claudia, Melanova, Sabrina, Pre-Amber, Mabel, Lush, Hershey, Penelope, Maxwell, Kimberly, Elevena, Faye, Manilla, Nikhil, Brad, Doyle, Marlon, Conan, Casper, Aster, Chromium, Melvin, Nullen, Julian, Jake, Boyd.

Notable Facts:

Amber is my primary pencil. She wears a paperclip as an accessory (which would be like wearing a scarf or a headband).
Once I lost Liliana for 5 days. I found her in one of my binders, stuck between the pages.
I lost Bonnie, Lush, and Rosalie because I accidentally left them on the window sill of my previous dorm room.
Abby is my most empathetic pencil. If someone asks me for pencil lead, Abby always offers hers. Additionally, if someone asks to borrow a pencil, Abby volunteers.
I had a pencil named Rachel that none of the other pencils liked. I lent her out one time, and she was never returned. I was happy about that.
Crèmula bit me once. When I initially found her, she had been abused and had trust issues. I was carrying her back in my pocket, and when I reached in, her point stabbed me and left a nasty wound on my palm. She's getting better.

GREETINGS BATTLE BROTHERS I AM NEW. *HOLDS UP BOLTER* MY NAME IS SERGEANT ARGUS BUT YOU CAN CALL ME BATTLE BROTHER. AS YOU CAN SEE I AM VERY LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR. THAT IS WHY I HAVE COME HERE, TO MEET OTHER BATTLE BROTHERS WHO ARE LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR LIKE MYSELF. I AM 127 YEARS OF AGE ( PRAISE THE EMPEROR) I LIKE TO PURGE HERETICS AND XENO SCUM WITH MY BATTLE BROTHERS ( I LOVE MY BATTLE BROTHERS, IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THAT THEN DEAL WITH IT) IT IS OUR FAVORITE ACTIVITY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR. ALL MY BATTLE BROTHERS ARE LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR TOO OF COURSE, BUT I WANT TO MEET MORE LOYAL SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR. LIKE THE EMPEROR ONCE SAID, THE MORE THE MERRIER. I HOPE TO BOND WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF LOYAL SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR SO JOIN ME IN PRAISE OF THE EMPEROR. FAREWELL.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!!!!!! <--- ME PRAISING THE EMPEROR FAREWELL BROTHERS!!

PRAISE THE EMPEROR

- BATTLE BROTHER -

I legitimately want to stuff my penis in his nostril. I'm not even memeing or anything, this has been one of my fetishes for fucking ages and I haven't found an outlet to vent yet.


Noses are designed to be fucked. They self-lubricate, the hairs feel great on my foreskin, and the semen I blast in there actually clears up the sinuses because it has salt in it.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I just wanted to thank you for posting this image, since I found a new character to masturbate to.


I don't know about you but sewage pussy is the best kind of pussy. My signature move is to gag on the stench until I throw up all over her vaginal crease and rub it into her nasty clitoris. Then I insert my penile muscle into those sweet, sweet walls until my toes curl up and I ejaculate my thousands of little kiddy babies into her retched cooch cooch. After that I prefer for her to throw up on my little man and have her toothless mouth envelop my wrank stick. And that kids is how you cure insomnia

Anyone else find this scene really hot? When this alien farts at Jar Jar? The alien just looks so feminine and sexy, and the way it farts and turns to him to flaunt it. Like it's inviting him to get closer for the next one.

I first watched this movie when I was very young and I have masturbated to this scene so many times.

This is me. Literally me. No other character can come close to relating to me like this. There is no way you can convince me this is not me. This character could not possibly be anymore me. It’s me, and nobody can convince me otherwise. If anyone approached me on the topic of this not possibly being me, then I immediately shut them down with overwhelming evidence that this character is me. This character is me, it is indisputable. Why anyone would try to argue that this character is not me is beyond me. If you held two pictures of me and this character side by side, you’d see no difference. I can safely look at this character every day and say “Yup, that’s me”. I can practically see this character every time I look at myself in the mirror. I go outside and people stop me to comment how similar I look and act to this character. I chuckle softly as I’m assured everyday this character is me in every way. I can smile each time I get out of bed every morning knowing that I’ve found my identity with this character and I know my place in this world. It’s really quite funny how similar this character is to me, it’s almost like we’re identical twins. When I first saw this character, I had an existential crisis. What if this character was the real me and I was the fictional being. What if this character actual became aware of my existence? Did this character have the ability to become self aware itself?

You.

Yes, you. The one screaming, "Islam is not a religion of peace!" and "Sadiq Khan lied to us!" and other slurs I dare not mention. Tread lightly.
You are one. We are hundreds, thousands. Millions. You aren't just IN the minority; you ARE the minority.
I don't feel awkward or anxious being a Muslim around others, and your words don't affect me. Many others, however, are coming out of their shells for the first time in their lives. This is the first time many are enjoying the beautiful world that has been gifted to us by Allah - and it IS beautiful. Incredibly so. DON'T ruin this for them. We Muslims may have our differences, but we will not hesitate to come to the aid of our fellow Athiests, especially against someone who so virulently slurs that which has brought us all together.
Don't take this the wrong way. I don't hate you. I don't fear you. I pity you.
I'm sorry that you feel this way towards us. I'm sorry that Islam is such a bane to your existence. And I'm sorry that you are missing out on such a wonderful religion. Mostly, though, I'm sorry that you feel the need to go around and publicly chastise and berate others. I'm sorry that, to ensure your own validity, you need to make others feel invalid. I'm sorry that your self-worth is so infinitesimally miniscule that you have to make others feel less-than-human, at least in your own denatured mind, just to feel whole. I am truly sorry that day-in and day-out you have to put up with your worthless, meaningless, Shakespearean tragedy of a life.
I ask you politely to cease your unnecessary cries for attention, and instead invite you to join our ranks. Stop being a Christian, convert to Islam, and breathe in the splendour and the amazement of your first mosque, and then, maybe, just maybe, you'll see what you've been so hopelessly searching for this whole time.

I want to be lauren mayberry's little baby tampon boy. I want to turn into a little crying baby and then suck on her breasts. Her magic breast milk would turn me into a little baby tampon boy. She would stick me into her hoo-hoo and I would wait with anticipation spouting little baby goo-goo ga-gas waiting for her to bleed all over me. I want to feel her lauren mayberry blood inside my little goo-goo ga-ga baby tampon body. I want to absorb her hoo-hoo juices inside my little baby tampon boy body and goo-goo ga-ga like a little rolly-polly baby boy. It would be orgasmic to know i am one with her hoo-hoo Lauren Mayberry blood and I would giggle and goo-goo ga-ga and yelp with little baby boy excitement as I roll around in her Lauren Mayberry hoo-hoo and revel in her red juices, slurping them into my soft little baby tampon boy goo-goo ga-ga body. Then I want her to pull me out and squeeze and wring my little baby tampon boy body so that her lauren mayberry hoo-hoo blood and juices spill all over her lauren mayberry face. It would hurt and I would scream in pained goo-goo ga-gas as pain envelops my little baby tampon boy body until I reach full climax and turn back into grown human man.

Lauren's so fucking cute and sweet. I'd treat her to some fancy restaurant, than take a long romantic walk with her, holding hands and talking about philosophy, art and dreams. Then I'd invite her to my home and ravage her hot ass for hours, and forcing my cock up her throat so she chocked on both the throbbing cock and her own rectal juice. I'd then proceed to cum on her cute innocent face. Then. as the ultimate love gift, I'd carry her in my arms to the tub and let my piss wash away the semen and last dignity from her. I'd wisper "I love you" and give her a tender smile, and cut her throat from ear to ear with a knife. Covered in her own warm blood, she'd look straight into my very soul, forgiving, understanding. A bubble from blood and saliva would burst between her lips, then she'd die. After some additional lovemaking, I'd stuff her into a bin bag. Three weeks later, some playing children will find her mutilated and desecrated body in the forest.

They will be scarred for life.

To be fair, I did Nazi that coming. I came here to say this but boy, that escalated quickly so to the top with you! Lost it at 'This is why we can't have nice things' and then my faith in humanity was restored, my mind blown, and manly tears were shed. Well said. As a 'Merican, I can confirm this gem has just won the internet and is doing it right. Just sayin', I know that feel, bro, and while that was a risky click, this post was a 9/10, would read again. I see what you did there and it feels good man. You're doing God's work, son. Yes. I get this reference. I laughed way harder than I should have at your list that seems legit and totally nailed it. You must be a hit at parties. I like you.

Doctors hate you! Instructions unclear. Dick caught in you magnificent bastard; you, sir, are so brave, a gentleman and a scholar, and seeing how you are a redditor for 4 years, this checks out, so I'll allow it. I regret that I only have one upvote to give for this cool story, bro. CTRL+F "about tree fiddy" was not disappointed. Wait, why do I have you tagged as "NOPE NOPE NOPE"? Nice try, you monster. What did I just read? Dafuq? I read that as "YOU HAD ONE JOB". I can't fap to this. No true scotsman could see that this relevant XKCD was bad, and you should feel bad. As a black man and as a gay man and as a woman, black people suck, gay people are gross and women are bitches. You must be new to Reddit, so I'll see your cakeday and raise you a karma train. One does not simply rustle my jimmies, not even once, and it's almost as if Reddit is composed of millions of individuals with different opinions and outlooks. This stahp gave me cancer for science, so that's enough internet for me today. OP is a bundle of sticks, 2/10, would not bang, not with that attitude. What is this I don't even know how is this wtf? Circlejerk must be leaking. This will get buried but brace yourselves, some men want to watch the world burn right in the feels. When you see it, they'll KILL IT WITH FIRE! I really sympathize with pedophiles, but that has nothing to do with atheism. Lawyer up, delete facebook, hit the gym, and SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY, said no one ever, so you wouldn't download a strawman. Damn onions, you scary like a BOSS. whoosh. Since rule #1 is 'be attractive', I'll just leave this here: This is my [f]irst post, be gentle. I have the weirdest boner right now. OP will surely deliver, unless he's a cop, in which case he'll just shoot your dog.

You are wrong, my friend. Us Leaves have mastered the art of the shitpost, infiltrating threads and derailing them when they are at their most vulnerable.

The very sight of our flag can cause an alt-right bigot to descend into a belligerent rage, unbeknownst to him that the reaction he gives is the one we crave and etch into our ethos.

We are run by an Islamic feminist who believes that you aren't supposed to kill enemies when at war, we bought a nuclear submarine and then had to give it to the U.S for free after NATO laughed us out of the G7 conference, it's illegal to disagree with transgenderism or migration as it's labelled as "hate speech," and our economy is so pathetically piss weak that China is effortlessly buying our country from underneath us.

We barely have a culture to call our own and our presence on a geopolitical scale is non-existent, and yet we have manipulated /pol/ into constantly screeching about it as if we mattered.

You fail to realize the art of the Leafpost, and that is your greatest weakness. Tell me, how many times have you angrily replied to a 'cucked' Leafposter? How many times have you participated in those endless "It's okay to fuck dogs!" threads made by a leaf?

Do not underestimate the leaf.

I spend 5 hours masturbating before my prostate exams. I edge, and edge and edge, until a butterfly sneezing on my taint could bring me to orgasm. I tactfully shuffle my way down to the doctor's office and when he lubes up I nearly cum every time. But I've trained my keggle muscles enough to the point where I can hold in Mount Vesuvius' wrath. Then as soon as he puts the smallest bit of pressure on my prostate I unleash with the fury of a lion hunting its prey. As the room gets covered in my hot sticky juices the doctor looks on disgusted and leaves the room. I always go to a hospital far away from where I live to get it so that I don't have to go in for surgery under the doctor that I busted to. Best thing is we have free healthcare here, so the doctor gets me off and it's covered by taxpayers. That's my fetish.

Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages... They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler, and then Biebler says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot COOLER than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, TALKING ABOUT JUSTIN BIEBER!!! IT'S PURE EVIL!!! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!!!

When I was 18... 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life. I saw an image of clarity. I saw a comic strip, a three panel comic strip that, though simple as it seemed, changed me... changed my being, changed who I am... Made me who I am. Enlightened me...

The strip, Garfield, the comic strip was new... no more than maybe a month and a half since inception, since... since coming into existence, and there it was before me in print, I saw it: a comic strip... What was it called? Garfield.

The story here is of a man, a plain man. He is Jon, but he is more than that... I will get to this later, but first let us say that he's Jon, a plain man. And then there is a cat... Garfield. This is the nature of the world, here. When I see the world, the politics, the future, the... the satellites in space, and... the people who put them there. You can look at everything as a man and a cat... two beings, in harmony and at war.

So, this strip I saw; this man, Jon, and the cat, Garfield, you see...Yes... hmm...It is about everything. This little comic is, oh, lo and behold... not so little anymore. So yes, when I was 18, I saw this comic and it hit me all at once, its power. I clipped it, and every day, I looked at it, and I said "Okay... let me look at this here. What is this doing to me? Why is this so powerful?"

Jon Arbuckle, he sits here, legs crossed, comfortable in his home, and he reads his newspaper. The news of the world, perhaps... and then he extends his fingers lightly, delicately... he taps his fingers on an end table, and he feels for something. What is it? It is something he needs, but it is not there. And then he looks up, slightly cockeyed, and he thinks... His newspaper's in his lap now, and he thinks this: Now where could my pipe be?

This... I always come to this, because I was a young man. I'm older now, and I still don't have the secrets, the answers, so this question still rings true, Jon looks up and he thinks... Now where could my pipe be?
And then it happens. You see it, you see... it's almost like divine intervention, suddenly it is there, and it overpowers you. A cat is smoking a pipe. It is the man's pipe, it's Jon's pipe, but the cat, this cat, Garfield, is smoking the pipe... and from afar, and someplace near, but not clear... near but not clear... The man calls out... Jon calls out, he is shocked. "Garfield!" he shouts.

Garfield. The cat's name.

But, let's take a step back... let us examine this from all sides, all perspectives... and when I first came across this comic strip, I was at my father's house... a newspaper had arrived, and I picked it up for him, and brought it inside. I organized its sections for him and then, yes, the comic strip section fell out from somewhere in the middle, and landed on the kitchen floor... I picked up the paper pages and saw, up somewhere near the top of this strip... just like Jon, I was wearing an aquamarine shirt. So I thought, "Ah, interesting. I'll have to see this later." I snipped out the little comic, and held on to it... and five days later, I reexamined it... and it gripped me, I needed to find out more about this. The information I had was minimal, but enough. An orange cat named Garfield... Okay, that seemed to be the lynchpin of this whole operation, yes. Another clue... a signature in the bottom right corner, a man's name...Jim Davis.

Yes, I'm on to it for sure.
So... one: Garfield, orange cat, and two: Jim Davis, the creator of this cat. And that curiously plain man. I did not know, at the time, that his name was Jon. This strip, you see, had no mention of this man's name, and I'd never seen it before. But I had these clues; Jim Davis, Garfield. And then I saw more, I spotted the tiny copyright mark in the upper left corner. Copyright 1978 to... what is this? Copyright belongs to a... PAWS Incorporated.

I use the local library and mail services to track down the information I was looking for. Jim Davis, a cartoonist, had created a comic strip about a cat, Garfield, and a man, Jon Arbuckle. Well, from that point on, I made sure I read the Garfield comic strips, though as I read each one, as each day passed... the strips seemed to resonate with me less and less. I sent letters to PAWS Incorporated, long letters, pages upon pages... asking if Mister Jim Davis could somehow publish just the one comic, over and over again... "It would be meditative," I wrote, "the strength of that." Could you imagine? But... no response... The strips lost their power, and eventually I stopped reading, but... I did not want my perceptions diluted, so I vowed to read the pipe strip over and over again... That is what I call it, "The Pipe Strip."

The Pipe Strip.

Everything about it is perfect. I can only describe it as a miracle creation, something came together... the elements aligned... It is like the comets, the cosmic orchestra that is up there over your head... The immense, enormous void is working all for one thing, to tell you one thing. Gas and rock, and purity, and nothing. I will say this... When I see the pipe strip... and I mean every single time I look at the lines, the colors, the shapes that make up the three panel comic...

I see perfection.
Do I find perfection in many things? Some things, I would say... Some things are perfect... and this is one of them. I can look at the little tuft of hair on Jon Arbuckle's head... it is the perfect shade... The purple pipe in Garfield's mouth...
How could a mere mortal even MAKE this?

I have a theory, about Jim Davis.After copious research and, yes, of course, now we have the internet, and this information is all readily available, but... Jim Davis, he used his life experiences to influence his comic. Like I mentioned before, none of them seem to have the weight of the pipe strip. But you have to wonder about the man who is able to even, just once, create the perfect form, a literally flawless execution of art, brilliance! Just as in a ward. I think there is a spiritual element at work...

I've seen my share of bad times and... when you have something... Well, it's just... emotions, and neurons in your brain, but... something tells you that it's the truth... Truth's radiant light.

Garfield, the cat? Neurons in my brain, it's... it's harmony, you see? It... Jon and Garfield, it's truly harmony, like a... continuous, looping, everlasting harmony... The lavender chair, the brown end table, the salmon-colored wall, the fore's green carpeting, Garfield is hunched, perched... perhaps with the pipe stuck firmly between his jowls... His tail curls around. It's more than shapes too, because... I...

Okay, stay with me... I've done this experiment several times.

You take the strip. You trace only the basic elements. You can do anything, you can simplify the shapes down to just... blobs, just outlines, but it still makes sense. You can replace the blobs with magazine cutouts of other things, replace Jon Arbuckle with a car parked in a driveway sideways, cut that out of a magazine, stick it in. Replace him there in the second panel with a food processor. Okay, and then we put a picture of the planet in the third panel over Garfield...

It still works.
These are universal proportions. I don't know... how best to explain why it works, I've studied the pipe strip, and analyzed Jon and Garfield's proportions against several universal mathematical constants. E, Pi, the Golden Ratio, the Feigenbaum Constants, and so on... and it's surprising... scary even, how things align. You can take just... tiny pieces of the pipe strip, for instance, take Jon's elbow from the second panel... and take that, and project it back over Jon's entire shape in the second panel, and you'll see a near perfect Fibonacci sequence emerge. It's eerie to me... and it makes you wonder if you're in the presence of a deity, if there is some larger hand at work.

There's no doubt in my mind that Jim Davis is a smart man. Jim Davis is capable of anything to me. He is remarkable, but this is so far beyond that, I think we might see that this work of art is revered and respected in years to come. Jim Davis is possibly a new master of the craft, a... a genius of the eye; they very well may say the same things about Jim Davis in five hundred years that we say about the great philosophical and artistic masters from centuries ago... Jim Davis is a modern day Socrates, or... Da Vinci... mixing both striking visual beauty with classical, daring, unheard-of intellect...

Look, he combines these things to make profoundly simple expressions. This strip is his masterpiece... The Pipe Strip is his masterpiece... and it is a masterpiece and a marvel.I often look at Garfield's particular pose, in this strip. He is poised, and statuesque... and his cat stare is reminiscent of the fiery gazes often found in religious iconography. But still, his eyes are playful, lying somewhere between the solemn father's expression in Rembrandt's "Return of the Prodigal Son," and the coy smirk of Da Vinci's "Saint John The Baptist".
His ears stick up, signifying a peaked readiness. It's as if he could, at any moment, pounce; he is, after all, a close relative and descendant of the mighty jungle cats of Africa that could leap after prey. You could see the power drawn into Garfield's hind quarters, powerful haunches indeed.

The third panel.

And I'm just saying this now, this is just coming to me now... The third panel of the pipe strip is essentially a microcosm for the entire strip itself... All the power dynamics, the struggle for superiority, right? WHO has the pipe? WHERE is the pipe? All of that is drawn, built, layered into Garfield's iconic pose here. You can see it in the curl of his tail. Garfield's ear whiskers stick up, on end, the smoke billows, upward... drawing the eye upward... increasing the scope. I'm just... amazed... really, that after 33 years of reading, and analyzing the same comic strip, I'm able to find new dimensions. It's a testament to the work...

For six years, I delved into tobacco research, because... can a cat smoke? This is a metaphysical question... Yes, can any cat smoke? Do we know? Can just Garfield smoke? The research says no. Nicotine poisoning can kill animals, especially household pets. All it takes is the nicotine found in as little as a single cigarette. urely, Jon's pipe hold a substantial amount of tobacco, and it is true that pets living in the homes of smokers are nearly 25% more likely to develop some form of cancer... most likely due to secondhand smoke... but these are facts of smoking, its tolls on our world.

But after visiting two tobacco processing plants in Virginia and the Phillip Morris cigarette manufacturing facility, I came no closer to cracking the meaning. I was looking for any insight. A detective of a homicide case has to look at every angle, so I'm always taking apart the pipe strip. I focused on every minutiae, every detail of this strip.
Jon Arbuckle's clothing... I have replicas. I'm an expert in textiles... so, you see, this smoking thing was a hang-up for me... but it was the statement here... until...

This is key, this is the breakthrough. The pipe is not a pipe, really.

Obviously there is symbolism at work here... I saw that from the beginning, and I looked at the literal aspects of the strip to gain insight into the metaphors at play. I worked at a newspaper printing press for eighteen months, in the late 1980's. I was learning the literal to inform the gestural the subliteral, the in-between...

Jon reading this newspaper means so much more than just Jon reading the newspaper but how could you ever hope to decipher the puzzle without knowing everything there is to know about newspapers?! Okay... for example... Jon holds his newspaper up with his left hand, thumb gripping the interior. I learned that this particular grip here was the newspaper grip of nineteenth century aristocrats... and this aristocrat grip was a point of contention that influenced the decision to move forward with prohibition... in the United States, in the early twentieth century!

So Jon's hand position is much more than that, it... it is a comment on class war... and the resulting reactionary culture... but I didn't know about the aristocratic newspaper grip until I came across some microfiche archives at the printing press. It's about information. You have to take it apart.and the breakthrough on the smoking cat came late... just eight years ago, actually. "Smoking cat" is an industry term. It's what the smoking industry calls a tattletale teenager who tells on his friends after they've all tried smoking for the first time and it is actually a foreign translation, bastardization of the term "smoking rat". But the phrase was confused when secret documents went back and forth between China and America.
These documents are still secret, and the only reason I know about the term is because I know a man, my friend. Let's call him "Timothy," yeah... yes, it's a fake name, for his protection. Timothy worked for Phillip Morris for sixteen years, and he had seen the documents... and when he told me, it was an Aha moment and he said, "But how? How could this cartoonist, Jim Davis, know about this obscure term from the mid-70's, used exclusively by a few cigarette companies!?"

This is still a mystery to me... but I connect the dots by noting Jim Davis' childhood experiences on a farm. He must have seen something. What could it be?

Timothy went on to tell me there was one particular smoking cat, a boy, from... yes, Indiana, a boy named Ernie Barguckle, who became a thorn in the side of the tobacco companies for a couple of years. He did more than tattle to his parents; he and his family took legal action, and they eventually received a huge settlement payout. But that name is too similar... Ernie Barguckle... Jon Arbuckle. Jim Davis must have used this.

There's more here. Ernie Barguckle spent nearly half of that settlement money on experimental medical procedures to cure his... impotence. He was impotent. So... he was a smoking cat with a... a metaphorical pipe, that did not work. Are you starting to see the layers here? This is exciting stuff, you start to get a whole picture here, and it informs the work! It's... it's just remarkable. Jim Davis took these raw ideas, these... pieces, and he transformed them into smart social commentary that is... all so ravishingly beautiful.
I have cried. I've cried, I've cried... I've cried, cried over this piece. It just... gets in my soul. I try to explain this to people, I have... the newspaper articles about Ernie Barguckle... People have fought me on this, they don't see it, or they're close-minded, "How could a comic strip about a cat smoking a pipe mean any more than that?" But it is more... and when I feel spiritual, or start to think existentially, I still see this comic.

Here's something from 1981 that I wrote in thinking about the implications of this strip; this is just an excerpt here... there's more before and after, but this part is the essence to me... If a comic about a cat smoking a pipe can be the only thing in the universe... then maybe this is the strongest evidence for that.

"Many of you say, 'Oh, but I am not blind. I have never been blind,'... But when you truly see, you will understand just how truly blind you once were to even think it right to say you were not blind.

What does a blind man see?

Blackness.
Darkness.
Blankness.
Blank darkness.
Dark blankness.

The absence of things, quite literally NO thing. No things. Nothings.

So, you see nothing, and I bring you into the light. A cat has your pipe! You've been blind, do you understand this!?

The cat has your pipe.

You can't fully immerse yourself, you don't have the light. You don't have the radiance, the radical light, the radically radiant light of truth and truth's belonging love, and nature of light, and loving truthful radiance.

So don't be bold, and make bold statements. I know of you.

The cat has your pipe.

The.
Cat.
Has.
Your.
Pipe.

Remember that.

That writing, well... It's kind of rough... Kind of an early eighties feel... and I see that, but I'm still proud of it.
Sometimes I imagine that it is the editorial column in the newspaper Jon Arbuckle is reading. It's an exercise in recursion, it's like a vortex opens up... It's like you hold two mirrors up to each other, one is reality and the other is a cartoon strip. Let's see here... Oh yes, I must bring this up, because I think, surely, Jim Davis is again speaking on multiple levels by including the details set before us in the comic.

Notice the glimpse of Jon Arbuckle's foot in the first panel. The size of the shoe would indicate that maybe the man just has small feet... but a deeper investigation takes us to the footbinding rituals of certain Asian cultures. Inflicted usually on women for the desire of men, this practice was incredibly painful and crippling... Aha! Mister Davis is, here, presenting us with a man, or rather... "man", who engages in footbinding, a body modification for women, on top of "being without his pipe"... or impotent. This is a man facing extreme inner turmoil, the panels tell that story... subconsciously.

Notice the background wall shading of the first panel points inward toward Jon in the second panel... and the sharp tapered end of the purple pipe in the third frame also points at John in the second panel, inward; the eye is drawn to the center panel. You can connect these points and draw a triangle across the panels, and this triangle will align with the reoriented points of Jon's collar! This, this is majestic artwork! and to uncover this hidden order is bliss like I've never known. Comforting, in an empty world. I can't help but read the thought bubble, over and over again.

Now where could my pipe be?

Now where could my pipe be?

It is a profound question.
Why am I here? What is my purpose? It is reflection and self-examination here. It is facing the dust, the misery of a cold, careless universe. You can feel the weight of it. But where could my pipe be? One imagines the author, Jim Davis, teetering on the edge of insanity... his rationality, his lucidity, hovering over the void... and he seeks the truth. You can see it in the line quality of the drawings; the thoughtful, controlled outlines mixed with the... occasional, chaotic scribbles at work in the shadows and Garfield's dark stripes.

It's almost as if Garfield is chaos himself.

Yes, he is the embodiment of chaos, disorder, hatred, fear... Thievery, death, destruction, desolation! These are the things Garfield represents; HE stole the pipe, HE sits with his back to Jon, Garfield... Garfield, this chaos cat, Garfield has turned his back on everything, everyone! One recalls the great existential forces in literature... Camus' Meursalt, Kafka's Gregor Samsa, or Sartre's Antoine Roquentin... Garfield the Cat sees the hopelessness of life, which...ah, yes...

This is why Jim Davis has chosen smoking. It represents a recklessness, a... a disregard for what some would define as the beauty of life. Garfield may die from the nicotine, he may not... He defies life; he sits defiant, saying nothing, but looking as if he could say... "Then let me die... it does not matter." It does not matter. and we are faced with this; Could Jon behave the same? Is Jon the glimmer of hope?

He seems to be unsure. Again, his question... "Now where could my pipe be?" indicates that he is wrestling with his own existence. The center panel centers the issue, and again, this hearkens to many of the great religious works of art.
I'm talking about the Pipe Strip in relation to religion. It's... it's interesting to assign the roles of God... and anti-God, or, as many know him to be, the devil... or on a much larger scale, simply the forces of... good and evil. Garfield, the thief-cat, evil and malicious... He is the devil, placed to the right... and note, the two forms of Jon; the Jon on the left, still innocent, still draped in the... delight, of the lack of knowledge. He is... the humans in the Garden of Eden. He feels for his pipe... but he has yet to eat from the tree... and Garfield, the sinister serpent... and notice, notice how Jim Davis has framed this... The center Jon is locked in a struggle, between his innocence, and his knowledge of the truth... knowledge of the existence of evil.

It is stunning. The great struggle, the struggle that transcends time... and Jim Davis floats over all this, as creator... the God, of sorts, in his own right. And he presents this cautionary message to us all; it is as if he is speaking from high and... he is saying, unto our awaiting ears...

Where will you be, when the cat reveals himself? [-Jim 7:27:78]

I can tell you where you'll be. You will have a choice; you can face endless suffering, and eternal misery... You can be forced and beaten down with barbarians, who claw at each other just for a view of salvation. They'll tear your eyeballs out, and rip your gizzards from end to end. They worship this cat, this... this false idol! This evil, horrible cat, do not be seduced by the cat and the pipe!
Garfield... thy name is a mark of the demons of hell. Something like this, and to those listening, it is a stark reminder to follow the path of the first panel Jon; be humble, be grateful, honor the law, and honor thyself. Be true, and be good, and no harm will come to you... Pray for salvation, and it will be granted unto you. Be like Jon Arbuckle, as he lowers his head. Be like Jon Arbuckle as he lowers his paper, as he turns his head. Bow with Jon Arbuckle, and praise unto the creator, Jim Davis... and banish demon Garfield from your life.

So, what is all this? What am I saying? Aha... hmm... What does all this mean? Why is this one comic strip so important to me... and why do I feel the need to share this? Obligation. I have an obligation to you all. This is a redemption, this is a belief in redemption, a sacrifice of all the obvious trappings of this false modern life.

Look at the simplicity in this strip, in the pipe strip. Look at the simple clothes Jon wears, look at his simple, basic furniture... No adornments on the wall, even the very pipe his cat Garfield stole; it is a plain, modest pipe... and I have adapted this way of life, it speaks to me.

In our times... well... you don't need me to point out the hyperbole of our times; you have children being born eight or nine at a time, you have more money being spent on a single Hollywood movie than some nations can spend... feeding their starving people. Torture, distrust... Look around you, it's overwhelming. What can you contribute? and every day, I look in the mirror, and I hold this comic up to the mirror, and I look into the mirror, and at this little comic strip.

Be humble.

Be thankful.

It is a reminder, be respectful.

You are a statue. You are fragile... and when you break, when you shatter... Where will those pieces go?

Ask... ask, ask, ask this question. Will you ask?
Humankind is only as great as you, YOU, the individual, it begins and ends with you! You must treat this expedition, this search, this... life, with a reverence and intensity found only in the smallest sticks. The littlest leaf, the tiniest stone! The most miniscule grain of sand... on a beach of billions!

This is the secret.

Do you want the pipe?

Do you want to know where the pipe has gone?

You ask yourself, you ask... you ask... you ask...

Now where could my pipe be?

When I was a young man... remember, now, I first saw this comic when I was eighteen years old... Ages ago... but I was youthful, vibrant. For weeks, I didn't hide that a comic strip was having such a profound effect on me. I was much like Jon Arbuckle. In this middle panel, he says, "Now where could my pipe be?"... you could look into his eyes, his half-lowered eyes, and think to yourself... "Now, surely, Jon... Surely, you cannot be this naive... This is nothing new for you..."

And if you've read more of the Garfield comic strips by Jim Davis, you understand what I am saying now; Garfield the cat does things like this all the time. He will take things from Jon; food, items, anything... This is his very nature.

So you see this, and you want to say, "Jon Arbuckle, come now. You are lying to yourself. You are lying to yourself, and to all of us, if you pretend to have not... any idea of where your pipe has gone. Perhaps you think you've left it somewhere else, but... hmph, you're not so forgetful. You are lying to yourself, ah... yes... You are lying to yourself, Jon Arbuckle. You know that Garfield has the pipe... somewhere, deep down, you know this. You don't even need to think the question." And that was me when I saw this strip. One week passed, and each morning I'd open my drawer and slam it shut again. I would go to look at the comic... but I'd pause, and think... "Oh no, I don't need this comic, I don't n... I don't NEED to look at it..."
But there I was, lying to myself.

I DID need to see it, and so I did, it's... cathartic. You give in, and that is the transition, from the second panel of life, to the third panel of life! It is a simple story structure, the passage from the second act to the third, the twilight of things. Jon gives into his suspicions; he knows the truth, he's ALWAYS known the truth, he yells out, "GARFIELD! GARFIELD! GARFIELD!"

It is like... pressure from a steam valve, being released; the buildup is unbearable, and then... PSSHHWW, it's gone. So it is like this... when I speak about the truth... the truth, the light, the radiance, this... this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is the essence of this brilliant work of art, the practical mixing, meeting, agreeing with the spiritual, it is all HERE. but spirituality is not an easy thing to confront. You might find yourself able to wrap your mind around a simple math problem, or a basic newspaper article, or... but intellect... is much less subjective.

What is spirituality... and how have I found spiritual peace and serenity in Garfield?

A long time ago, after I encountered the Pipe Strip... I spent some time, as I mentioned before, soul-searching. When something impacts you, or alters your very perception so greatly, there is a long period of confusion, recovery time. It's as if you don't know who you are, and that can be a... a very scary prospect, especially if you thought you had a good grasp on that sort of thing. Imagine if Jim Davis did not know who he was. Would he be capable of shaping the cultural landscape as he's done? No. No, of course he wouldn't.

...and how about his characters? Jon... what if Jim Davis suddenly woke up, and didn't know who Jon was? What if he couldn't make the informed decisions to accurately depict Garfield's personality, because of... he could no longer specify, or demarcate the boundaries of Garfield's behavior? What kind of comic would THAT be? You see?

So draw the parallel. I saw this comic and, yes, I was disoriented... and if I didn't reconcile this issue with myself, what kind of person would I be? Undoubtedly dire circumstances, but remember; this was not a math problem, this was not an article, this was not something I could just figure out and as skeptical as I was, I realized that faith and spirituality were avenues that required exploring. At first I tried... long nights, reading Garfield by candlelight, or aromatic meditation settings, while thinking of Garfield, but nothing snapped. Nothing clicked, I still felt lost... but I kept it up, I hired a shaman, and a young personal Yogi Sikh Guru; Avram Dahb Singh Sahib. I pushed and pushed, determined to find myself.

And then, a miracle happened. Upon retrieving my morning paper, to clip the Garfield comic... I noticed a young girl, selling lemonade two houses down. She sat, occupied at her stand. She had no customers in sight. So, I approached, and saw that she was coloring. I looked at her drawing...Three rectangular boxes. A man, in a blue shirt. An orange cat. I knew what this was. Even in her crude scribbles, I knew EXACTLY what this was. She was drawing a Garfield comic

I looked at her words, and I saw that, in her strip, Jon asked Garfield to retrieve a newspaper. Heh, funny... since I'd done just that with myself... Garfield is sarcastic, but agrees to. He returns and calls Jon... "Sahib". Jon exclaims that the paper's all chewed up, but then Garfield says, and I quote, "Sahib asks fish, paper is wet. Sahib asks cat, paper is holey." I remember the words, and ran back to my house, and thought, "How odd that Sahib shows up in the strip, and my spiritual advisor's name is Avram Dahb Singh Sahib!" Coincidence surely, but, nonetheless, I spent the next sixteen hours poring through my clipped Garfield comics, looking for the strip this young girl had been coloring... I couldn't find it... and I eventually fell asleep, right on my kitchen table
Next morning, I retrieved my paper again, and I clipped the Garfield comic. The date was July 12th, 1983. There it was. The Sahib Strip, in all its glory. The girl had been drawing the next day's strip!

So, I ran right out of my house, I ran back to where she was... but she was gone, and in place of the lemonade stand was a "For Sale" sign.

They'd moved out.

I rushed back to my house to call Avram, but... I was informed that he'd moved away as well. I reeled, for several hours, and then it all connected for me. It was meant to be. It w... it was meant to be this way! Jim Davis... Jon, Garfield... It was always meant to be this way for me.... They move to the forefront, and everything else fades away, EVERYTHING else; the girl, the lemonade stand, Avram Dahb Singh Sahib, it all existed to show me the way, and when I'd found the way...

Everything else melted away. It was a beautiful miracle... and if July 27th, 1978, the day I first saw the pipe strip... was the first day of my life, then that day, July 12th, 1983, was the second day of my life. I've never looked back. Garfield has transformed me... and I am a man, born anew, because of Garfield.

When I was in my mid-thirties, I was interviewed for a documentary... It was a documentary on the subject of cat behavior. Now, I've had cats my whole life; I have three cats now, and at the time of this documentary interview, I had four cats. I sat down for the interview and was joined by a veterinarian who specialized in felines: Doctor Caroline Wellmitz was her name, I believe... and the doctor discussed colorblindness in animals, and how it affects their behavior.

She specifically brought up the fact that cats are red-green colorblind; they can see colors, but they can't tell the difference between red and green ...and look at the color choice in this strip here. Garfield sits on a green floor, behind a pinkish red wall.
I heard this, and I immediately pulled a copy of the comic from my wallet to show to the doctor... I moved so fast, I'm sure I nearly scared her, I... pointed at the paper and said, "Like this! Like this! Look, at this here! This cat, Garfield, he's colorblind, he must be! That must be the answer here... like this."

As over-excited as I was, I managed to take in her response; she said "Yes, a cat in this room would have a hard time differentiating the wall from the floor. Add to that a cat's known spatial confusion, and you have the makings of a Cat Rage room." Now, she informed me that this isn't exactly common knowledge among cat owners... but a seasoned cat owner, or someone particularly perceptive will have picked up on it.

So what's incredible here is not only is Garfield's behavior symbolic of the devil, and all the evil constructs in the world, but... but, but... but also, it is rooted in science and scientific fact.

Look at that. You cannot spell fact without "cat".

Hah, just a little joke there... just some wordplay, but getting back on track...

...and you can't spell track without "cat."

Okay... I digress. I gotcha, I gotcha, enough... kidding around.

It is established here that Garfield is in a rage; an ultimate rage of fury and hatred, caused by colorblindness. We know the "what", we know the "why"... but let us examine the "how", the how of his rage is particularly interesting here. We've looked at his posture and called it "powerful", "in control", "statuesque", "etc., etc." Composed rage... It's peculiar, and I've talked to a number of psychologists and psychiatrists, and even a couple of anger management therapists about this concept...

Could we see the same kind of behavior in a human? Is Garfield representative of something more specific than just chaos and rage? Deciphering this is going to take some perseverance. for sure.
The psychologists pointed to a phenomenon in humans, and, yes, I believe one of the anger management counselors brought it up as well. The idea that people, oftentimes, will bottle their rage... Garfield the cat, here... well, he could be bottling his anger, inside, shoving it deep into his cat gut, to ignore and deal with at a later time.

Eh, well... No, that's not exactly right. Garfield has already acted out, he's already stolen the pipe... he's SMOKING the pipe, he's already dealt with his anger. He's already lashed out, so, psychologically, what is going on here? What is this cat doing, and how does it impact his owner, Jon Arbuckle... psychologically?
Well, Garfield is angry. He is acting on his anger... but is this passive anger, or aggressive anger?

Passive. It is passive because if Garfield has a problem with Jon specifically... he's choosing a passive way of dealing with that problem. He has not confronted Jon, and said, "Jon, I have a problem with the way you've decorated this room; as a cat, I am colorblind, and this room sends me into a rage... You've created a rage room for me here, and I don't like it; I want you to change it."

Instead of that confrontational approach, though, Garfield has chosen to steal Jon's pipe... and that, in turn, angers Jon... but Jon decides to be aggressively angry, and yell at Garfield, so... now, instead of a calm conversation between two respectful parties, you have two... heated, angry individuals, each with a problem and no direct line to solving it. The layered emotions here tell a story with tight, focused brevity that would make Hemingway weep. This is an entire drama, in just three panels, people.
...but let's not be remiss, and miss the humor of the situation, the... absurdity of it all... for certainly, there is a reason that the visual shorthand for drama includes both the crying mask AND a laughing mask. Comedy and tragedy complement each other, and meld together to create drama, tension, the height of humanity, the peak of art, that reflects back to us our own condition. .and here in its basest form, we can laugh at this comic yes, COMIC, in which a cat smokes a pipe... Hah... when was the last time you've SEEN such a thing in your life? Never, I presume... I certainly never have...

The Greek muse, Thalia's presence is strong in this work of art, here. Comedy, it is COMEDY... and if you look at the structure again, you'll see this perfect form of thirds works magically for the transmission of, yes, YES, a JOKE. The joke.... is as old as time... even cavemen told jokes, and the joke here is that Jon has lost his pipe... or he thinks he has... but lo and behold, it is the cat, Garfield, who has the pipe. surprise, surprise, the cat is smoking!

Again, the transition, from set-up to punchline takes place between the second and third panels... but make no mistake, the comic is more than just a comic... Yes, it IS funny, of course it is... it is operating at the height of sophisticated humor, on par with any of Shakespeare's piercing wit.

On the one hand, Garfield the comic, with Jon the man, humor as art... the other hand, Garfield comic, with Jon the man, stirring... no, RIVETING drama... as with everything, it is tension, and release. TENSION... and RELEASE...

A cycle.
I keep returning to this idea, because it is so omnipresent. Yes, you could... and yes, I have done this, on more than one occasion... you could print this comic strip on a giant piece of paper. The dimensions would be something like... thirty-four inches by eleven inches.

Now, tape the ends together, with the comic facing inward. Stick your head in the middle of this Garfield comic loop and READ, start at the first panel; Jon is reading the newspaper... he feels for something on the end table.

Second panel; he sets the newspaper down, something is not right..."Where could my pipe be?" he thinks...and then, the payoff; the third panel, Garfield has Jon's pipe, and is smoking it.

But, aha! The paper is in a loop, around your head... so that you can see that, once again, Jon is in his seat, reading the paper... and so on, and so on, you can literally read the comic strip for an eternity!

I spent many a relaxing Sunday afternoon reading this strip, over and over... reminded of the Portuguese death carvings, which always begin and end with the same scrawled image.

So, this idea of repetition, of the beginning being the end, and the end being the beginning... It's not new, it is an ageless tradition among the best storytellers humanity has ever offered... and I'm not wrong to include cartoonist Jim Davis in that exalted set for this particular strip alone

I'm not foolish enough to deny that great art is subjective... divisive, even, and that some people see this Garfield comic and shrug with no real reaction... but I will say that I believe everyone in the world should see it; at the very least, see it!
You should all see it. Read it. Spend some time with it. Spend an hour reading it... what's an hour? Yes, you could watch some television program, you could play some fast-paced video games or computer games, yes, you could do all those things. But it's just an hour... and if you give this strip a chance, if you look into Jon Arbuckle's eyes... if you look into Jon Arbuckle's SOUL... You might find that you'll really be looking into your own soul.

It is self discovery, that is what I'm talking about here... YOU have the opportunity, the possibility... it could change you. Don't be afraid.

You know, just last week, I was eating lunch near the Municipal Court... like I do every Thursday, and... there was a plumbing banner... a plumbing van, parked out in front, uh... and a man, a plumber, would step out from the court, and retrieve something from this every so often.

A few times, this happened... I thought nothing of it; just a plumber, doing some work at the Municipal Court... but then he came out, and looked through his van, and it was clear. He couldn't find something. I noticed, and thought, "Well, that's sort of similar to the Garfield comic, in a way. Someone looks for something, can't find it,"... but, yes, that probably happens billions of times a day around the world...

...but then, this plumber... put his hands on his hips... then, he scratched his head, and he said aloud...

"Now, where could my pipe wrench be?"

Well, at this, I leaped off the bench, sandwich still in hand, and I rushed over, I shouted, "What was that you said!?"

He looked at me and said, "What? I can't find my pipe wrench, " and I said, "No! No, no, say it... like how you just said it..."

He scratched his head, and repeated, "Now where could my pipe wrench be?"

I slapped him on the back and said, "Garfield!"

He looked so confused, so I said it again... then, I said "Your orange cat took it!"
Heh... ah, then I laughed and laughed... and he smiled, and went back into the courtroom.

I walked away, knowing that the plumber and I, two complete strangers, bonded over this Garfield comic... You see, life imitates art, becomes a common ground.

I have a feeling that if I see this plumber again, we'll be sharing stories like two old friends because we've been united by art. We have a common love for Jim Davis and his characters, his writings... The humor, the drama, that rascal Garfield, the cat. (Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what I was having for lunch that day, it was a ham sandwich with an apple and potato chips... in a bag, I had a soda as well)

I think it's important to view the Pipe Strip in philosophical terms... We've touched briefly on the notion of existentialism; that theme is very prevalent in this strip. Garfield is, in fact, a modern existential anti-hero... but if Garfield embodies the bewilderment in a meaningless life, what is Jon? What are the telltale signs that inform Jon's philosophical standpoint? His approach, what style of thinking he represents?

Jon is depicted as being grounded in the material world... a world of things; he is surrounded by objects, and he touches these objects, he interacts with them. The newspaper, the end table, the chair... his clothes, all these physical things make up Jon's world. In some sense, even his cat Garfield is an object to him, a thing...

The first ideology that comes to mind when thinking of objects in the tangible world... is pragmatism... Is Jon Arbuckle a pragmatist? His beliefs stem from a useful, coherent view of his environment... a sort of cause-and-effect understanding of his world helps him.

A: Deduce that his pipe is missing... and B: Catches his cat, Garfield, using the pipe.
This kind of empirical and logical thinking lends credence to the idea that Jon is, indeed, a pragmatist... Although, it is hard to entirely ignore the rest of the Garfield comic canon.

While Garfield is consistently anarchic, and embraces the chaos and absurdity of life... Jon Arbuckle exhibits an erratic, unpredictable mix of philosophical behaviors. At times, he is borderline; delusional, an idealist, an almost slap-happy version of Don Quixote. Other moments, he is rigid, nearly to the point of being obsessive... somewhat like a structuralist, and certainly has streaks of sarcasm and negativity that might classify him as a skeptic.

...But isn't there some universal truth in this approach? How can any one man, how can Jon Arbuckle be just one thing? How can any of us be just one thing? We're... an amalgamation of ideas, of emotions... conducts and functions, thoughts and feelings... Jon Arbuckle may very well inhabit tenets of nearly every major philosophical tract known to man. We all might.

Characters are reduced, to make them recognizable, definable; a story needs a good guy, a story needs a bad guy... but rarely is one person defined in such black and white terms. Even Garfield, with all his bad behavior, Machiavellian motivation and general ne'er-do-well attitude, can be kind and thoughtful. You just have to find that rare strip.

Speaking philosophically about the entire Garfield franchise, it's an incredibly accurate depiction of life. Its bold lines and bright colors are merely a facade, a... a red herring, a lie. This cartoon is not a cartoon at all, it is not a... caricature. It is not caricature despite adopting caricature as its visual style and tone...but I don't really like to speak in broad sweeping generalizations about Garfield.
The comic has been running for over thirty years, and to try and boil that all down is just, well... it's impossible. I think the only way that any historian worth his salt will agree with me is to look at individual moments... isolated instances, single comic strips.

Can I discuss this one strip in the context of the entire run of Garfield? Yes, I do that just as a film historian might analyze one movie in relation to the history of all movies, or a war enthusiast might look at a single battle's impact on an entire war. The Pipe Strip is just an instance in the lives of Jon and Garfield.

Perhaps Jon is not a pragmatist at all... let's look at this again. Maybe Jon is exhibiting the traits of a rationalist thinker; his question, "Now where could my pipe be?" is a clue that his thought process stems from the early rationalist questions posed by René Descartes. The well-known quote, "I think, therefore I am," attributed to Descartes, is applicable.

Another close look at the strip, and we see that Jim Davis chose to draw Jon thinking his question.

"Now where could my pipe be?"

Jon does not speak this question aloud, so Jim Davis is also exploring the mind/body duality... Jon's question operates on the level of a literal question... but it also examines the nature of reality. Jim Davis' epistemological approach tells us something about the human condition; Jon's thoughts remain the focal point of this strip.

The comic is, quite literally, centered around his thought.

"Now where could my pipe be?"

This is his reality, this is where cognition, and the power and function of the mind take over. As Plato believed, the body is just a shell for Jon Arbuckle; yes, he can use his physical body to read his paper or cross his legs, but these inputs of touch, sight, hearing, et cetera, these senses are the triggers of the mind, as we see here, the mind... is something greater. It is the originator of ideas, and ideas are forever. Immortal.
Immortality through thought, a... a major theme in literature and philosophy...

...and isn't that what Mister Jim Davis himself has achieved?

Will he live forever?

The universe will continue to spread, and spread outward, and... entropy will turn a chaotic infinity into a homogenous, controlled system. This will take billions of years, and in that time, humans will push technology to heights we can't imagine. We'll explore and inhabit space, and occupy more and more of the universe, just as time allowed our ancestors to... multiply in numbers, and populate more and more of the Earth.

...and as the specific people come and go, their physical bodies will be born, and grow, and die... but their thoughts will remain. and Jim Davis' comics, his glorious Garfield comics... are recorded ideas of his, that will still be here.

Even when the Earth is no longer inhabitable, and humanity has long since moved away to bigger planets, they'll carry with them a record, a record we all keep; mark my words... and look at what we've started, what is... What is the internet? What is the online world, if not a record? Never-ending feed of ideas, immortal ideas... forever placed in the ether of dualism.

What is an idea? Where does it live? How does it manifest itself? Can it live forever? Will it live forever, outside of these physical husks of ours, our bodies?

...and Jon Arbuckle, and Garfield, started merely as thoughts... but they've become so much more. That old cliché rings true, they've taken on a life of their own... and life may not be what we think. Life brings to mind a beating heart, breathing lungs, blinking eyes...

...but the real life is in our imaginations... and who better embodies the definition of imagination if not a simple man... a cartoonist, who puts his ideas to paper so that they may live on, so that our children, and our children's children, and their children's children's children can access the wealth of ideas that have accumulated thus far.
They will plug themselves into an information grid, and they will have access... They will read every Garfield comic, 80,000 years from now, a child will see a simple Jon Arbuckle, reading a newspaper. He will feel around for something, but that something is not there... He will lift his head and think...

"Now where could my pipe be?"

...and Garfield will be smoking the pipe, and Jon will yell "GARFIELD!"

...and what then? 80,000 years from now?

The child reading this comic will smile... and that smile will transcend space and time and the physical limitations of this existence, whatever they may be, however many dimensions exist...

There will always be Garfield... and there will always be its creator...

I'm convinced that mattress/furniture stores exist in a quantum superposition of grand opening and going out of business sale.

It is both and neither at once until an observer records the state at which point it becomes one or the other.

But because you know exactly where the store is located, you cannot know how fast it is going out of business because of your uncertainty about its business momentum.

All around us, all the time pairs of anti-discount mattress stores and discount mattress stores are popping into existence, forming the quantum memory foam that is the basis for the universe. Without the pressure of this quantum memory foam strip malls would collapse.

We can see evidence of this when a pair is created such that one half is within the sales radius of a supermassive furniture store like Ikea-- one of them is pulled in and the other escapes as a Hawking mattress store.

You girls are funny. I like to listen to your tiny 110 IQ brains working in their somewhat feeble and halting fashion. It's like watching those gibbons at the circus they teach to smoke cigars and ride a little tricycle around in a ring. You know, you're almost right. Compared to modern men, anyhow. Since the average male nowadays is a pathetic wreck who looks like a crossbreeding experiment between Don Knotts and PeeWee Herman, you girls are really closing the gap. Soon the average male will be nearly as weak as a physically fit woman.

I weigh 320 pounds. I run the mile in 5:20. The commanding chief of police of Queensland recently described me to his staff as "superhuman freak from another world who only looks like one of us on the outside." He also said "Technically, the guy is an unlicensed weapon of mass destruction just walking around outdoors. If I ever get orders to arrest this guy, I'm bringing a tank and a rocket launcher." He also described me as "without a doubt the most brilliant software developer we have ever contracted with."

If you go to the Vault-Co website and have a look at the Vulcan Fortress, remember those one ton drums you see on the site were offloaded from the delivery truck and then rolled around the site ... by me, working alone. In many cases I carried the 400 lb stainless steel air intake pipes down into the five meter pit on my back. These pipes required six people to unload when they arrived and I was not there to assist. Just one of those pipes would crush you girls like the gravitational field of a black hole.

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For a little while now I've been wanting to act like a cub...without my fursuit. I have a few problems though and I don't really know how to handle them without asking this subreddit. My first problem is that when I roleplay, I have to actually look very similar to a cub For it to have any effect. If I don't look like a cub, I really can't consider myself a cub and after a while I get kind of disgusted with myself for some reason I don't know. For instance, if I were to look down and see my hairy man legs it would ruin the whole thing and I'd probably feel disgusted with myself. For some reason ears and a tail really don't seem to do anything as that kind of just implies a half human half animal thing.

Second of all, diapers can be somewhat sexual to me if I actually wear them with my fursuit and I wouldn't want to bring sex anywhere near my roleplays. im kind of at a loss for ideas here, maybe somebody here could help?
I'm a regular Joe with a small dick I'm looking for a woman who enjoys a small dick but is willing to have some hot sex with me if you like my ad and you want to get to know me please feel free to send a picture and some info I'm looking for a relationship for ongoing activities I'm a laid-back kind a guy and I'm never pushy I'm 420 friendly and drink friendly. Put friend in the subject line so I know who real
Slosh, slosh, Jackal rummages around, delighting in the warm, satisfying feeling of food being sent deeper within her. Beneath all the ice cream and pastries she devoured is the remnants of an intruding vixen she found and bound. Once tied up, she proved easy enough to swallow down, and since being subjugated to Jackal's powerful insides she's more a fox-laden soup than the thick vixen she previously was.

With all the vixen left to digest, the purple canine simply went about her normal routine: eating, sleeping, relaxing, only occasionally paying attention to her engorged middle as the chyme within her is absorbed and turned into much more useful pudge. For the better part of the day Victoria the vixen is processed by Jackal's guts, even her clothing isn't spared by the canine's impressive anatomy. By the time Victoria's bulge has shrunk from a massive beanbag to a firmer beachball size, does Jackal begin to assess the damage the fox is doing to her curves. She's not afraid to get physical -- while she's rubbing her hefty potbelly, her free hand thumps and slaps against the surprisingly resilient hill of purple. Her hand sinks and rebounds from her skin, accompanied by the delightful noise of fluids sploshing around within her. The firmness, when compared to her earlier belly's jostly softness, means parts of the white fox is already permanently added to Jackal's frame as chub.

She gives the fox a few more hours of stewing around within her until a final air bubble wrestles up Jackal's throat as a echoing Burrp!, signaling Victoria's completed digestion, and that means it's time to assess how she's done. Starting from the top, the purple canine's hands move to her previously modest chest, which ballooned into two heavy milk jugs.
I raped myself today.

You read that right. For years people kept saying that washing your asscrack while showering is normal, and "hygienic". Of course I just tried to ignore them, I wouldn't indulge in their satanic self-harm. But the pressure kept building, my ass growing crustier by the day. I found myself starting to believe it wouldn't be that sinful, right? Well I was WRONG!

This morning in the shower it happened. Washed my body and face just like normal, washed my hair, and relaxed for a bit. Then the intrusive thought got in my mind again. "If everyone does it, how can it be that bad?" I found myself reaching for the soap, arms shaking. Got closer to the spot where the sun never shines. Contact. Slowly going towards the middle. I already felt it was wrong, and believe me, I wanted to stop. Just swipe it like a creditcard through a reader and be done with it. I wish I stopped before that moment. I did what I did. After 20 minutes of crying on the shower floor I had to face the facts. I'm gay now.

Spy Kids 3D is one of the few films in which I personally did not find any significant weakness even after many viewings. From the direction, to the acting, to the storyline, to the score, Spy Kids 3D has the word classic written all over, and it really is not much of a surprise that it is now considered by many one of the top five spy movies of all time. Perhaps when it comes to cinematic techniques Spy Kids 3D has not been as revolutionary as The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D, but its influence on motion pictures is comparable. Rarely a movie has defined or re-defined a genre as much as this one did for "spy movies", but its influence goes well beyond that.

But to say that Spy Kids 3D is simply "influential" is to diminish its true qualities, and so is to describe it simply as "a movie about Spy Kids". The Spy Kids are certainly the main focus the story revolves around, but although the movie never tries to forcedly insert separate subjects it contains an amount of psychological and social subtexts that cannot be overlooked. Considerations on how the social environments changes us, on how moral values appear different from different point of views, on how violence can destroy a human soul, and on how power can corrupt an individual are deeply blended into a story that stays practically always true to complete realism, and the result is a picture of astonishing efficacy and believability.
Given the chance for vengeance on General Scales, Krystal eagerly took up the opportunity and dominated the overgrown reptile beneath her paw. With his weapons and armor removed, the muscular lizard was, with great difficulty, sent down the blue vixen's throat, and from there it wasn't long until her bodily functions took care of the rest.

Within Krystal, the massive scalie's bulk is eagerly kneaded and mashed, her stomach effortlessly resisting whatever kicks or punches the indignant reptile can muster. In fact, all his struggles achieve is letting air escape up her throat, causing the occasional Buurp! or belch past the feisty vixen's teeth. Despite his empty, muffled threats, her inner workings grind the chiseled saurian into viscous, nutritious goop in no time. Not all at once of course; the lowermost portions of the lizard are first to be melted and emptied out into Krystal's lower bowels where they sluice and slip around in her red tubing. But, as digestion sets in and General Scales becomes more syrup than solid, her intestines are flooded to near capacity with reptile-rich chyme, which bloats out her crotch and abdomen.

"Ooh! Mmm... This is a much better place for you."

As her bowels go to work siphoning the scalie-mix away, her breasts and butt bubble up, naturally matching the amount he's disappeared by. She pats her potbelly, giggling at the rousing feeling of the slush inside her shifting to and fro. Slapping her belly produces angry grrgls and grrns, obvious protests from her innards wishing to be undisturbed in their work. There's a few obvious chunks of him left at this point, but the lion's share of Scales resides in her intestinal tubing, where her body can eagerly reap the rewards.

The last bits of life in General Scales are snuffed out of existence as the stomach he resides within contracts one final time, crushing him down and deeper.