Mindless Mutterings

A lot of you who have visited the blog as of late might have noticed on one of the sidebars "Strange Man's prescription for happiness." I really do believe that it works. Reading the comics daily does make life a little happier. Now granted, joy and happiness are two different things - closely related, but completely different things, but there is nothing wrong with happiness. Comics are a great way to stay happy - or at least to laugh, if you get the joke, which, I guess if you don't get the joke....I digress.

I've been reading comics for a long time, pretty much since I could read, which is nigh on 20 years now (yes I know I'm not all that old, and I've just really dated myself, but cut me some slack, will ya?) and I remember a lot of them. I've seen different strips throughout my schooling, some were related to what we were learning, some were just there to break up the monotony (and I think the teacher used them to wake students like me up in the middle of class too). It also was a weekly ritual for me to read the comics every Sunday. I had to be the first one to read them when we got back from church. Peanuts - the classical Charles Schultz comic strip with Charlie Brown was always the first one. Followed closely by Beattle Bailey, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Family Circus, Hi and Lois, and a few others. The last one I always read though, until it was no longer published in the papers, was Calvin and Hobbes. I loved that strip. I could have grown up as Calvin, though I never had a stuffed tiger that came to life, even in my imagination - I guess that was why it stuck out so much at me.

In the comics, whether they're the good oldies, or some of the newer ones, we find ourselves, and situations we've faced mirrored, along with some great humor and insight. I think one of the other reasons Calvin and Hobbes was one of my favorites was because I identified with Calvin so much. We were both only children, with parents that both worked. We both bordered on ADD, and had very active imaginations. And we both had a fifth grade teacher that was a monster, who misunderstood us, and didn't give us hardly a challenge intellectually (I just got detention a lot because I didn't do my homework - I still had better in class grades than a lot of my peers, if it weren't for the stinking homework...)

I also learned a lot about my parents from comics, and understood why my parents are the greatest in the world. They love me for who I am, let me make mistakes, teach me from them, and most of all they support me. They were also not afraid to discipline me. I think they learned a lot of that from their parents, and For Better For Worse. My dad also loved Calvin and Hobbes, and I'll never forget this one line he used as I got older and understood more things. Whenever I would start to balk and get stubborn about not doing something he'd always break out with this quip, "Son, between the time you were born, and the time you'll graduate from college, your mother and I will have spent close to $500,000 on you. Do you want that to be a grant, or a loan?" From an early age, I had a keen understanding that loans were bad things...

Now, years later, I still love reading comics. I don't do it in the paper anymore, mostly because the rest of most newspapers is depressing TP that I wouldn't want to use as such, but also because it's not convenient to me. I mostly read the comics online, and I've found some new favorites as comics have progressed. But without getting into to many specifics, let me tell you really, why reading the comics is the best medicine for staying happy, healthy, and uncovering some of the joy in life.

The biggest reason, is they make you laugh. Granted, not everyone likes every comic strip, and some of the funnies aren't really even funny, they're sort of...cynical and depressing, like a lot of the news that gets blabbed around (that would be serious strips like Boondocks, which is included in a whole different topic). But just about everyone can find a strip or two that makes them laugh. Laughter is often touted as the best medicine (see Reader's Digest) and really it is good for you. You get exercise, you relieve stress, you raise your dopamine levels (that's the brain's natural happy chemical, similar to giving Rats cheese for getting through the maze), and just generally seem to take some of the hardness of living in today's hard world. Laughing calms your nerves, and soothes your temper. Who doesn't like to laugh? I'm having a hard time thinking of someone...if you do, let me know.

Another reason is that the comics help you to appreciate some of the more random, pointless, and just plain inane things of life. I really think that to enjoy life, you have to see those little things, that are so seemingly insignificant, and enjoy those exact things. That's what life is made of - little things. I mean, when you boil us down to the nitty-gritty, you get atomic particles, which are made of sub atomic particles that no one knows what those are made of - and that's getting pretty small. But it's also those other small things, like a squirrel randomly running around, or that really stupid mistake that you just made thinking I was typing something else that I wasn't really typing, but you thought you read. Or the random things - stupid humor. It's looking at those little things, and seeing the humor in them that can keep you smiling all day long, even when you've been on your feet for 9 hours, your head hurts, and you've been spat on but just about every customer you have. It's looking at a day like that, and then coming home to read a comic about a bunch of animals sitting on a hillside, watching all those people in suburbia in a late night rainstorm as a flash of lightning..well I'll let you read it here.

Have a good night, and read the comics....they're good for what ails ya.

Blessings,