Image by Hugh MacLeod

Of all the painfully funny cartoons on Hugh MacLeod’s Gapingvoid blog, for me this is the funniest and most painful.

It’s painful because I know exactly how Eric feels. A few years ago, I was in his shoes. And I feel for him – because I know if he doesn’t change, his story is going to have a messy ending.

The humour, of course, turns on the idea of what is ‘asking for too much’. In Eric’s universe, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a minimum level of comfort and freedom to pursue his own interests.

In the world’s eyes, this is enough to brand him ‘a deranged lunatic’. The world doesn’t work like that. Comfort and pleasure are reserved for those who toe the line and get a haircut, a shave and a steady job. Anything else is asking for trouble.

Eric’s situation reminds me of the famous words of George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Eric’s problem is that he isn’t do