While We Were Napping
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, then a short essay, then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner, Wayno whose weekly blog post I recommend highly.
Here’s the ANSWER KEY to this week’s Secret Symbols in the Sunday comic, above.
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A couple of weeks ago, I did a blog post in which I related some of my ruminations about reincarnation. A regular reader left this in the comments:
“I find your recent conversion to the Ways of Woo to be very disappointing, but I still enjoy your art and humor. I suppose those with vivid imaginations are compelled to use them.”
I understand that point of view completely. That was precisely my reaction to such topics up until only a few years ago. I used to discount anything outside of provable science by calling it “woo-woo.” However, I’ve since had a few unasked-for experiences that I can only call spiritual, and my entire worldview has changed dramatically. Ten years ago, I’d have bet my mortgage that this would never happen.
But, we’re all on our own path, in our own reality, and this is where mine has led thus far. Why I feel the need to share this with you is something of a mystery, but suffice to say that I am inspired to share this stuff in the same way I’m inspired to share art and cartoons. It’s just who I am.
I used to openly mock people who believed in anything outside of the Darwinian model: Humans are accidents of chemistry and evolution, and we cease to exist when we die. The whole wide world of concepts outside of that narrow corridor of thought was what I called “woo-woo.” I was certain there was no woo-woo in the universe.
I am now of the opinion that the universe is nothing but woo-woo. What we consider reality is an illusion that only works through the five senses of us Homo sapiens. The rest of the universe is one wacky mystery after another; just ask a quantum physicist.
To say the universe is not woo-woo is like saying the ocean is not wet. The ocean is a massive collection of water molecules just as the universe is an eternal, boundless arrangement of mystical forces we can barely even begin to understand with our short-lived mammal brains.
Seen from above and at a distance, the ocean might seem to be a single thing; a solid surface, a quantifiable and describable scape of waves with a few birds flying over it. It is only when you dive beneath the surface that you realize it is water. Suddenly, you are face-to-face with innumerable forces, beings, dynamics, and varieties of life, many of which do not exist on land, and with an unknown number yet to be discovered. It is both a single thing—the ocean—and the billions of things that constitute it. But you can’t know that without experiencing it. To declare that there’s nothing under the surface when you’ve never left Nebraska is foolish.
I hasten to add that in no way have I closed my mind to science; I’ve simply opened it to things science does not yet understand. I’ll admit that opening my mind to this stuff was like cracking a walnut with a loofah, but once opened, my personal universe became exponentially larger and I’m having a ton of fun that I used to deny myself. If this is woo-woo, sign me up!
Let’s check in now with Wayno’s temporary reality by visiting his Bizarro cartoons from the week…
With a line like that, he’d better hope that’s unbreakable glass.
Deciding what color to paint your house from chips is like deciding what to write a novel about by looking at the alphabet.
He’s not yolking.
Throughout the history of the human species, there has never been a shortage of artificial intelligence.
You think their poetry is bad, you should hear their singing.
But how does he differentiate between drinking and breathing?
We’re done here and we appreciate your sticking around for the final woo. If you like what we’re doing here and that we aren’t charging you for it or making you battle pop-up ads, please consider helping us keep it that way via one of the links below. We’ll add your name to our spooky, midnight incantations.
Until next time, wear your heart on your sleeve but spray it with Scotchgard first.
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