I saw this through Scott Arbuthnot today who said he loves the GapingVoid cartoon but not its assumptions. As do I. And I wanted to do a little deep dive into that as I totally concur with his viewpoints.

At first blush, it all seems great. It talks about courage, bravery, smartness, forgiveness, etc. and those seem to tug and ring a bell somewhere. Who doesn’t like all those words? And then comes the winning against the bad things like status quo, stagnation, and that life is generally hard.

These are false dichotomies. Good vs evil. Positive vs negative. Many of these do not relate to the other item. Why does one have to fight the status quo? Courage to what end? Is bravery the only way to fight stagnation? What about chance? If you are brave, nice, smart, and forgiving, it will work out in the end, right? It may or may not.

And whether life is easy or hard is driven by one’s perspective. Our outlook. Our beliefs. Our attitude. And these things are like Scott says, just wild assumptions to make. Without context.

It is okay not to have courage, not to be brave, smart, or forgiving. And life could be actually easy if one structures it that way. Humans are complex. And unique. So let’s not stereotype them into one answer. And when you overlay specific contexts, upbringing, and cultural environments/practices, the answers look different. For each one of us. At different points in time.