Calvin & Hobbes (lifetime in a comic)

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“I’ve been thinking, Hobbes”

“On a weekend?”

“Well, it wasn’t on purpose.”

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Where to begin?

 

Let’s start on a sunny day in 1999 in a large house that rests a few miles southwest of Fort Knox. I am five years old and my brother, Ezekiel, is almost one year old. On this day, amidst preparations to head out with my parents and my new brother, I stumble upon an unfamiliar comic book. Its cover depicts a young boy mid-air wearing roller skates and holding an open umbrella, the boy connected by rope to a red wagon that has just recently been sent careening off of a small dock into a pond. There is a cartoon tiger mid-air inches above the red wagon also suspended above the water; the boy overjoyed, the tiger apprehensive. Red letters spell out “Calvin and Hobbes”, a collection of Sunday strip comics by Bill Watterson. I ask my mother if I can borrow her book. She replies that “she did not find it that funny,” but, “sure.”

 

Now, let’s jump up on that sunny day in 1999 and land on the ground in 2016. Calvin and Hobbes has proven to be perhaps the most triumphant celebration of life, youth, imagination, sense, wit, and satire that I have had the pleasure of experiencing in my entire life. In fact, there is no other book, piece of music, movie, or other creative work that has influenced me the way Calvin and Hobbes has. I continue to read the collections I own, as they always take on a new meaning in the context of my life at that time. Notably, I spent the Spring break of my freshman year of college reading Calvin and Hobbes. The constant whir of college life had taken a toll on my imagination and sense of creativity. Not only a toll on my ability to create, but my ideas towards how worthwhile it was to create, in general, had also been damaged. It was Watterson who reminded me that a life spent not creating is like a dreamless sleep: empty and fleeting.

 

The comic follows a young boy, Calvin, and his best friend, a tiger named Hobbes. To Calvin, Hobbes is alive, to everyone else, Hobbes is a stuffed animal. Calvin creates whole worlds with his imagination, playing the roles of various superheroes, space explorers and sometimes dinosaurs. All of this imagination is in the context of life, in the sense that the real world is often a green screen of sorts for Calvin’s imagination.

 

I was able to grow up with Calvin, and I learned that the words Watterson wrote for a young boy would resonate throughout a lifetime. Even now, as I reminisce on some of my favorite strips online, I recall reading them when I was much younger, and how I felt then compared to how I feel now. One I just read involves Calvin and Hobbes finding a dead crow. Calvin says, “Look, a dead bird!” To which Hobbes replies, “It must’ve hit the window.” Calvin then goes on in the next few boxes to say, “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s so delicate. Sighh… Once it’s too late, you appreciate what a miracle life is. You realize that nature is ruthless and our existence is very fragile, temporary, and precious. But to go on with your daily affairs, you can’t really think about that. …Which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It’s very confusing… I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up.” Hobbes replies, “No doubt.” The next panel is Calvin and Hobbes sitting, leaned against a tree, while three birds fly past in the background. And, here I am, still waiting for it all to make sense.
I am eternally grateful to have read Calvin and Hobbes throughout my entire life, so that I may always have another connection to my past. I am a more thoughtful, compassionate, and peaceful person because of this comic strip.  

Kafka’s Metamorphosis as a means to Understand Depression; Alienation

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“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what

is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

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How do you describe depression? The word is often associated with great sadness, but in my experience the word does not describe an absence of happiness but rather an absence of vitality. You feel your very life force drained from you, unable to perform the very tasks that may pull you from depression. It is frustrating, daunting, and always finds a way to justify itself.

But, how do you truly put the essence of living with depression into words? I found the answer to that question in the pages of The Metamorphosis during my senior year of high school, and again during the Honors sequence. The way Gregor Samsa feels after being mysteriously transformed into a bug is almost exactly how I felt when depressed.

In Gregor’s case, the transformation takes place overnight, but you may find the transformation takes place over months or even years, changes so slight that you do not notice them, until one morning you wake up to find you have fully transformed into a beast. Your new physical state brings with it some limitations: perhaps you cannot lift yourself out of bed, you find it impossible to communicate, or maybe you feel heavier and heavier as you walk, as if a weight were pulling you down. You are aware of every limitation and frustrated with your own incompetence, yet your transformation is complete so you feel you have to live with the limitations. There is nothing more inconvenient than being a monstrous bug or being depressed.

To others, you look unhuman. People have trouble understanding your situation, and so they start to blame you for your unfortunate transformation. One of the greatest parts of the book is how Kafka perfectly describes the endless sense of alienation associated with depression. Alongside that description, the painful burden of keeping someone who is depressed in one’s life is articulated beautifully. Gregor’s family first tries to understand, but they then grow frustrated, eventually hating the thing Gregor has become. I find it notable to realize that the whole Metamorphosis story is told in the third person, almost as if we were being told the story from the perspective of the “outside” consciousness, that which alienates Gregor. Perhaps Gregor has not turned into a vile vermin at all; that we are in fact another force behind the alienation of Gregor. If Gregor’s story was told from his own perspective, maybe he would not be a vermin, but merely misunderstood.      

This book also taught me that for things to get better, you often have to take a step back and assess the situation and be willing to do what is best for everyone involved. Gregor’s true downfall comes from others not understanding his situation. When Gregor first turns into the beast, though continuing life is slightly more difficult, it is not unmanageable. It is only once the outside world finds itself at complete odds with his new existence that he becomes weaker and more beast like. The harsh response from Gregor’s family is not surprising, yet how his family reacts to Gregor’s new state only further perpetuates it. His family wants him to be better, yet their actions towards Gregor’s new form seem to blame him for his own misfortune and inadvertently makes everyone’s situation worse. “‘Mother, mother,’ said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not help himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the flow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her. …Gregor’s appeals to his father were of no help, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder.” (Kafka 8, 9). It takes understanding, not blame, to truly help someone (and if that someone affects you, you are also helping yourself).
The Metamorphosis has had a significant impact on my life. A painfully honest account of depression and alienation, this story reinforced my deep-seated belief in compassion and understanding as most important when interacting with other humans.