- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Source: https://xkcd.com/3172/
More context: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3172:_Fifteen_Years
I’ve copied some of it below, but I didn’t go in and add all the links:
Randall’s then-fiancée (now wife) was diagnosed with cancer in late 2010. This is a matter he has discussed in the comic multiple times before, with Randall being depicted as Cueball and his wife as Megan. At this comic’s release, it had been 15 years since her diagnosis and treatments.
This comic continues previous comics in the series – 1141: Two Years, 1928: Seven Years, and 2386: Ten Years – the initial parts of which are shown in the first 20 panels, which are grayed-out. These take us through the initial diagnosis and inability to imagine what future might be, into concerns about it potentially recurring, and up to enjoying ten years of life together that they weren’t sure they would have.
After some new panels marking more significant non-cancer-related events from the most recent five years of their life, Megan announces some potentially concerning-sounding symptoms she’s experiencing. However, the punchline is that these are just the signs of growing old, which Cueball is experiencing too. This is good news, considering the serious medical scares they lived through.
The title text continues that ending with a play on a common conversation topic. Normally someone rhetorically asks “Want to feel old?” and then follows it with a description of a difference the conversants have with the younger generation, or how long it’s been since some significant event they both experienced, as Randall has done in several previous comics. This is meant to make the other person feel bad about their age. In this case, though, the question is taken literally, with a simple “Yes” response to indicate that feeling old is better than being dead and they are happy to be alive and to have had the time they have.
The finality of this new installment suggests that it may be the last in the series, as it is solely related to Randall’s wife’s recovery from cancer.
I have genuinely conflicting feelings both for and against this kind of comment. Don’t have time to unpack them so I’ll just say it means there’s a fruitful discussion to be had and an online forum is a fine place to have it.
Not much against it though, I don’t see it as a criticism directed at Randall & family, but at a fucked up healthcare system that lets poor (and often not-rich-enough) people die.
I am also happy for this particular success story but I share the sentiment expressed in the previous comment.
It turns what should be a good, bittersweet moment into… resent, envy, and chiding.
And for what? Because so many cancer survivors campaign against cancer research and helping people with cancer? In my experience, they’re not exactly the pull up the ladder types.
No, that’s not it.
It would be it if @[email protected] would have said “I hate how they are able to afford the medical care they need, and I don’t”, which is exactly the opposite of what they said.
You can genuinely be happy for Randall Munroe’s wife, while still being critical that people need to be able to afford life-saving health care. That’s not a contradiction, and the original comment did exactly explore that.
And I’m pretty sure that if you ask Randall Munroe and his wife, they would have preferred to not pay for her treatment either, and I’d be very surprised if they’d be like “We were able to afford it, so we are good, and people who can’t afford it should just die, because they are bad”.
There’s no need to turn people against each other when the fault lies with a broken and corrupt system and with billionaires enriching themselves on the suffering of all the others while outright buying politicians for their cause.