Well I say that is GAWBAGE, sister! Having to put up with you is like… having to put up with GAWBAGE! I don’t know where you get off, but it’s definitely not at the Homestar Station anymore. Looks like you’re riding the 7:30 Alone train to ALONEVILLE. Making stops at Ex-Girlfriend Junction and West BREAKIN’ UP WITH YOU! Oh, and you can keep the collector’s plates!
We’ve seen him at least go into the shower room, that day he discovered what an uncircumcised penis looks like. And I suspect that if he didn’t Dorothy would have more than a few things to say on the matter.
That was SEVEN years ago in meat-space – how long ago was that in comic time?
Well Kmart Canada was spun off as a separate entity and quickly bought by The Bay in 97 due to the management group wanting a quick return and not caring one iota about the company or the people – They were merged with Zellers – Killed off by Wal-Mart and it’s predatory corporate practices. They are no more. They have ceased to be.
Obviously they’re relatively okay-smelling garbage. Walky in particular strikes me as likely to be made mostly up of candy wrappers and empty Doritos bags.
About 15 years ago, I was visiting some friends in Lompoc, CA. One morning I rode my bicycle around at random, and that is how I discovered that Lompoc’s city landfill was nestled in a valley in the hills south of Lompoc, maybe a hundred vertical feet higher the city.
(Seriously this is a beautiful sentiment and I kind of want to like, tattoo it somewhere. I wouldn’t, but I might like, ballpoint pen it onto my arm where only I can see or something.)
Feeling like garbage can be one step towards fixing things. It’s interesting to see Walky be so accurate and serious, it points out the large internal conflicts he has.
Not by itself but if for example, black curly hair could indicate the character is a black person, has some black in them or even be Mediterranean but you need more clues than that to be sure.
“… But one day, for no reason, or no reason I know it or can remember anything happening which it meant anything, I stopped at what I was doing and said, John Payne, you are a piece of crud. You are a common, long-term drut. *Look* at it.
It’s not like this upset me or anything, why would it? It’s part of the truth to what I’m saying. You can’t disturb a nobody with evidence he’s a nobody. A nobody is not disturbed by anything significant. It’s like trying to disturb a bum by yelling ‘poor fuck’ at him. What’s new? he says. So when I said, John Payne, you final asshole, I just kept on riding. ”
Something about this interaction reminds me of “Typical.”
The thing is, all the “supportive” people in their life are trying to affirm Walky’s and Amber’s value, and in doing so they are downplaying and dismissing their emotional place and state of mind. There’s been no “that’s a valid feeling to have” for them up until now.
Exactly. They haven’t been “allowed” to feel the negative feelings, which is a big part of how “supportive” people kinda fail. truly supportive people affirm that even the negative feelings are valid, and encourage experiencing them and working through them.
I am so conflicted.
Because they’re not garbage. Either of them.
And even though this seems to be de-stressing for both of them, I can’t be sure it’s healthy. Not if what gives them (temporary) peace is reaffirming that self-assessment.
It can be positive. Sometimes, when the people around you care a lot and don’t want you to feel bad about yourself for things that you’re legitimately doing wrong it can become difficult to tell where the honesty ends and pity begins.
Sometimes you need to be able to look at yourself and have that “I fucked up, ” moment without someone telling you that it is not as bad as you think. It becomes unhealthy when you constantly carry it around in the back of your head and become convinced that every positive thing anyone says about you or suppress for you is a lie or out of pity. Then it becomes easy too cut ties with people so that you can’t be pitied or viewed as a burden.
It can also be read as “how DARE you not be okay, you’re not allowed do, stop not being okay this instant” and so make you feel like even more of a piece of shit for being a downer or whatever.
Hint: “don’t cry” is a line that you should hold down and NOT use 90% of the time it comes to your mind.
This feels very healthy to me. Both of them needing someone just acknowledging their flaws and accepting the angst they feel about it without judgement makes sense to me.
Agreeing with what’s already been said. There is enormous pressure on both of them to be “perfect”- a lot of which comes from their own selves, and how they have learned to be.
The thing is, when someone says they feel a thing, and you say that isn’t true, it’s a problem. I mean- if it’s a one off it’s not, but let’s go to an extreme example and talk about anorexia. If you tell an anorexic individual they’re not fat it’ll only serve to reinforce their genuine perception of themselves as fat. You need to help them to feel accepted EVEN IF THEY ARE FAT.
And this is what Amber and Walky have never, ever known. Nobody has told them it’s okag to be shit, screw up, to not be perfect. Nobody had ever taught them that they are loved even when they’re garbage.
And so this? This is SO. FUCKING. IMPORTANT. I can’t even put it into words (at 7am anyway). This is someone finally, FINALLY saying “okay, so you’re not perfect. That’s okay. We can be not perfect together and that’s absolutely fine.” I don’t think either of them would even begin to stop self sabotaging until someone made them feel that way.
I guess I can see y’all’s point.
It just bothers me, on a visceral level, to knowingly tell an untruth, to feed (what I believe to be) false and delusional beliefs, even I know that’s what the listener wants to hear.
She’s not delusional, she’s just being much too hard on herself. Her feelings (namely, the angst over how she feels that she’s garbage) are valid, they’re real. She’s not garbage, but she feels like she is, and that the difficulty she’s been having trying to change means it isn’t possible.
Having that inner turmoil not just acknowledged, but recognized by someone else is what she needed at this moment more than to be convinced she isn’t garbage. She’s not ready for that yet.
There’s a fine line though.
You want to validate the feelings, but the last thing you want to do is reinforce them.
Walky seems to be doing a good job, somewhat accidentally.
In that last panel, it WOULD be better if Walky said “up here we can feel like garbage”, but that’s not the place he is in his head. He feels like he IS garbage, rather than just feeling like garbage.
I do agree with you- there’s a difference between validating their feelings and agreeing that it’s actually who they are. But it’s still so important that they’re able to feel like they’re less than perfect and that’s okay, even if Walky’s wording could be a little better.
I got the feeling that Walky there is redefining ‘being garbage’ from a permanent brand to a temporary shitty state that one can get out of, and THAT is a very good viewpoint to take here.
Take a lesson from Inside Out – Sadness is a genuinely healthy emotion, and there is a place for it in life. It is valid to feel like worthless garbage sometimes. Much like pride, it’s dangerous to feel too much of it, but a little is healthy.
Counterintuitively enough… what Walky is saying here can actually be really helpful. A lot of people (myself included) do the sort of thing he’s complaining about Dorothy doing, but sometimes you just need somebody to acknowledge your feelings of garbageness. (Garbagity? Garbaglasdfkjdslfj?? I don’t know, I’m an English major, why should I know what the word for the state of being garbage is?) Sometimes, just having someone tell you that your feelings are valid is the first step to feeling better. (Or maybe I’m a weird person who doesn’t speak for all people. Probably that one.)
Re: the alt text – please don’t, unless you plan on including a cd single duet of walky and amazi-girl singing”up here we can be garbage” in a Disney style meet-cute
Eh, Walky isnt saying that theyre garbage all the time. Hes saying its healthy to have a little self loathing once in a while which is true. The more you try to shut up those voices the louder they get. Sometimes people have periods like that, sometimes they overdo it. But the one thing no one else has done is validate that these are ambers feelings and shes allowed to have them once in a while.
Also: I’ve found that if I insult myself out of self-loathing, I can understand why my friends wouldn’t want to validate an insult.
So, a compromise that I’ve found helps sometimes is someone saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way; I felt that about myself when [I failed a class / got dumped by friend / didn’t get into art school] and it *sucks*. I feel you.” So, it’s like, empathizing without saying “Yes, you are, in fact, garbage.” Actually, technically this is what Walky is doing; not judging or trying to fix it, just empathizing so Amber doesn’t feel alone.
Sometimes, you just need to feel the way you feel in peace and not have an avalanche of people try to fix it immediately. There is a time for help, and there is also a time to be real with yourself… to be genuinely in the present moment with the garbage thoughts.
Six days ago, comic time, Amber lost control and nearly killed a person.
This may be the first time since then that she finally is alone and can think. Solenoid says it beautifully. If Amber has any hope of getting better, she needs to be genuinely in the moment with her garbage thoughts.
Walky comes in at the perfect time and says exactly the right thing to allow them to be alone with their thoughts together.
This resonates with me in an odd way as someone with crippling self-esteem issues. I can’t say I really want to feel like garbage, but I just find it frustrating when people give me empty “oh no you’re not garbage you’re perfect” comments. I know I’m not perfect and so I know those comments are lies and empty words and that’s not going to make me feel better. A token gesture born of social norms doesn’t convince me I’m not garbage, if anything the lack of any actual effort or empathy just reinforces how garbage I am.
Surely there’s a middle ground? I mean, per my comments above, I’m not going to tell the opposite lie, that they’re perfect. My instinct is to try to guide them toward reality (not away) and an honest self-assessment, which is usually somewhere in-between.
well that would be you putting in the effort to empathize and help, it’s not just empty words and token gestures, it’s an effort to help get the person to genuinely give an accurate self assessment of themselves to feel better, which is a much better approach.
I am really, really bored of Amber. I hope we can get some quicker character development for her, her angst story line has really been lost in the weeds for me
What isn’t shown is that I’m on the other side of the roof…
It’s certainly frustrating when people say positive things about you when they don’t feel true…
I love this.
I’ve had a terrible time these last few months. I’m overworked and I feel like my studies aren’t going as well as they should. Every time I’ve aired these worries, people have told me that I can do it, I am good enough, I am smart and I am able to focus and do well, and… well, it didn’t. I’m four and a half years into my university studies and I just flunked my first exam.
And suddenly I feel like people are listening to me. My family and friends are acknowledging the fact that I am not feeling okay and that this is starting to become too much for me. And I really, really needed that! Just being able to say that stuff is hard and that I might not make it, makes me more motivated to actually push through.
I think it’s really good that Walky and Amber can talk about not feeling good enough together. Because sometimes, you just need to me honest about not feeling that you are good enough, feeling that it’s all just too much.
And I really hope that they both seek assistance with their struggles as well. I’m trying to seek help to get my studies back on track after I failed my exam, to keep working even though it’s hard, and to seek assistance from my friends and family now that they understand how hard it is for me.
God do I know this feeling. But “fortunately” I don’t have a lot of people around me telling me I’m not garbage. But at least I have anti-depressants to help.
I definitely relate, but both Walky and Amber do need to address the issues that brought them to that rooftop. Just maybe later. Sometimes you just need a breather and just want to exist as your garbage self.
Which is what Dorothy doesn’t get: Walky isn’t just having trouble with math, he is dealing with how stuff came so easily to him and now that it isn’t, well, what does that make him? And no amount of tutoring is going to help that part of it.
I won’t talk you out of that title. It’s almost poetic. Sometimes being told we are great just makes us feel guilty or inadequate. Sometimes we need a place to be flawed human beings.
PS: I’m really sorry for being so sporadic in my posts. I’m working on finding a place near my friends and away from so much concentrated bigotry. Then my dog was diagnosed with kidney failure. I took care of her as best as I could. I seen her in pain. There was blood. We had to make the hard decision. I had to go alone. I felt her die. We buried her by the woods in our front yard. The hole was deep (it was dug with a tractor). She was in her coat and wrapped in her favorite blanket. Dad said he wants to plant flowers there in the spring. I need to get back to looking for places, but right now I need to cuddle my cat and drive to dad’s often to spend time with my other dog who just lost her best friend. So odds are my posts will be sporadic for a while yet.
And to all who celebrate this time of year, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Habari Gani?, Blessed Yull, Happy Boxing Day, Merry and Enlightened Newtonmas, Happy Ōmisoka, and Happy holidays to one and all.
After 3 and a half days of (almost) nonstop reading, I’ve finally caught up to the present comic. It feels strange to know this comic started in 2010, feels so long ago, especially remembering Joyce meeting Dorothy for the first time and GASP
Thinking some more about what others have said, I think some of my reaction is to the specific use of the word “garbage”.
To me, that doesn’t merely mean “flawed” or “imperfect” (or “normal” or “human”), it means “utterly without worth, suitable only to be thrown away.”
The first, I can support. The second, I can only say (or think), “no, that’s not true, that is wrong.”
And I’m not going to support or validate that belief, which is symptomatic of a broken thought process, of mental illness, any more than I’m going to pile more blankets on top of a flu patient because hey, if that’s your thing, you go and have that fever, your brain’s not 100% cooked yet!
Also?
People earnestly believing and feeling stuff that is not true, that is counterfactual, is a big part of why our country is in such a mess right now. Mostly I stay quiet, knowing that I’ll never be able to convince them that what they’ve been told is bullshit. But I refuse to join the parade of liars who smile and say, “Yes, that’s absolutely right.”
You still seem to be conflating “I feel like X” with “I am X”. Which a lot of people do, and yes it is a problem. But the solution isn’t to only engage with the “I am X” part of things, it’s to separate and clarify those two things, and learn to tell them apart well, so that you can validate the “I feel like X” without feeding the “I am X” (or while fighting the latter).
And probably a lot of the confusion here is from Walky, like many people, saying something like “I am garbage” when he *means* “I feel like garbage”. It takes experience to tell when someone is doing that, and even then there’s guesswork involved, so, ideally it’s best to check with the person to make sure you’re understanding each other.
As StClair says, Amber at least appears to mean “I am garbage”. Whether Walky means it as well or not, reinforcing that opinion in Amber is not a good thing. Validating her feelings is, which makes it a tricky line to walk.
I remember hearing once of a language/culture that didn’t have a way to say “I am sad”. They could only phrase it as “I have a sadness”. Probably apocryphal, but a nice way to avoid that conflation.
Poking around the Internets finds this, from Grant Morrison’s Invisibles, though I think I heard the concept earlier.
“Ah, I feel a sadness on me, Dane. That’s how the Irish people say it. In their language, you can’t say, “I am sad,” or “I am happy”. They understood what we English have long forgot. We’re not our sadness. We’re not our happiness or our pain but our language hypnotizes us and traps us in little labelled boxes.”
In this context, I do take Amber’s statements to be self-assessments of worth(lessness), not emotional state. I am inclined, though perhaps not as strongly, to do the same for Walky.
I suppose I will have to wait for clarification.
True, amber does seem to think her feelings are facts :/ and both of them might not have ever thought about the difference between feelings and facts, so they might not have the awareness to even be sure of what they mean. I wish this was taught in schools :p
Feelings and facts both matter, and when people don’t distinguish between the two, well, crap like this happens. One can be perfectly aware that the feelings have nothing to do with reality, and still those feelings *exist* and they need to be acknowledged and processed before they’ll let go.
The truth matters, maybe now more than ever.
And even if I don’t have a fix for the problem, a cure for the illness, I will not sell snake oil, or offer a sugar pill and a shrug: “If they want to get better, they will.”
I hear what you are saying, you want to stand for the truth. This makes total sense to me, but …. where people’s idea of who they should be and who they are is involved, the actual truth is rather hard to determine.
If I feel like shit for whatever reason and friends tell how great and intelligent and whatever I am and that i can pull it off i get annoyed and feel even worse because they don’t take my concerns seriously. Then I either have to dramatize in the hope that they will listen, or shut up and feel like no one actually sees who I am (and still is my friend).
The people who deal with it best actually manage to ask why I feel that way and that way get me to talking and thinking about what my mind tells me. And it’s much easier to catch yourself talking bullish that way than have others telling you you’re talking bullshit.
Though “garbage” really implies they feel like they have no worth at all, and that’s very worrying. But still, it’s not their job to not make you worried.
Nope, it’s not (their job).
Neither is it mine to tell them lies, even the one(s) they seem to want to hear.
Like the man said: “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that; no I won’t do that.”
Walky’s not lying to Amber. He’s essentially saying “yeah, I know how you feel”, and letting it be.
She does need to be assured that she has worth despite her flaws. It’s just that she can’t get there directly from here. That’s why her friends trying to pull her in that direction all failed and were pushed away. She’s going to have to take a slower and more circuitous route to get there.
I didn’t say telling people what they want to hear helps. I said asking questions, listening, and giving people a chance to listen to themselves helps. When dealing with people and their unrealistically high expectations of themselves or else in the dumps.
Or you can decide you don’t want to help.
Dealing with people who are not able to listen to what they are saying and who are talking about how whoever they think gets a better deal from life than they do is the root of all evil and must be destroyed is a different kettle of fish. I have no solution for those.
…right now, I’m struggling with my studies a lot. There are objective reasons for that, there are subjective reasons for that; in the end, sometimes I try to start a sentence to my parents with “So, I might flunk out”.
I’m ALWAYS, IMMEDIATELY showered in a bunch of NO YOU WON’Ts. They utterly refuse to even DISCUSS the possibility. Nope, flat denial, I should not put myself down, etc.
And like… it’s not helping my anxiety. It’s very freeing to talk through a horrible-seeming scenario, discover that it’s not, in fact, the end of the world and start working on the task without all the weird pointless pressure attached to it. IT GETS EASIER IF I ACKNOWLEDGE I MIGHT FAIL.
Loading ...
this is just one big garbage dump, huh
can I join
Willis, why would we talk you out of a perfectly good book title
I prefer “You Ask A Lot Of STUPID Questions For A Smart Guy.”
As much as I think “Up here, we can be garbage” is a pretty good title, “You ask a lot of stupid questions for a smart guy” sounds even better. 🙂
just use both! make one of them the sub-title
Up Here, We Can Be Garbage: You Ask A Lot Of Stupid Questions For A Smart Guy
Turbo edition!
Makes more sense the other way round, imho.
You Ask A Lot Of Stupid Questions For A Smart Guy: Up Here, We CAN Be Garbage!
(as if to say, how can you not realise that we can be garbage up here? :P)
“Up Here, We Can Be Garbage” is more universal, I feel.
…. Awwwwwwwww!
We can be garbaaaage, just for one dayyyy
Well I say that is GAWBAGE, sister! Having to put up with you is like… having to put up with GAWBAGE! I don’t know where you get off, but it’s definitely not at the Homestar Station anymore. Looks like you’re riding the 7:30 Alone train to ALONEVILLE. Making stops at Ex-Girlfriend Junction and West BREAKIN’ UP WITH YOU! Oh, and you can keep the collector’s plates!
(High-five for Homestar reference)
…not David Bowie?
Turns out I don’t always see nested comments. huh.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who went there.
Ninja’d!
On another note, I came here to make sure this song was sung. Thank you, DailyBrad, for singing it.
Does this count as “trash talk”?
I ReFUSE to respond to that 🙂
It would be a WASTE not to LITTER this with a pun-thread.
I shall simply DUMP more puns on.
I just hope this thread doesn’t get SCRAPed.
We shall recycle and reuse old memes till we are blue in the face.
Or is that because we are Blue boxed?
Rubbish! It will live forever!
Quit RECYCLING those puns. They are TRASH.
I will MUCK around as much as I like.
Be careful, we’re getting near the TIPPING point.
We’ve BIN at the tipping point, and now we just jumped OFFAL the edge.
Offal? What a load of TRIPE; that really was a truly OFFAL pun you made.
What we need is to get to the heart of the matter.
Vulture gets on a plane. Flight attendant says, “Can I check that for you?” Vulture says, “No, it’s carrion.”
A nice thread in which to DUMP our puns.
Wait pinkie’s pun didnt show up for me at first.
Disregard the previous comment
We can’t throw away this opportunity to pun.
Lets LANDFILL this with puns.
I hate each and every single one of you so much right now
You’re not asking us to DISCARD this and toss it in a BIN are you>
Did all of you just come here from Wilde Life or something? I swear the comment section on that comic can get truly OFFAL.
Also holy shit it’s Dayna
Hi Dayna
Not familiar with that, is it also a webcomic?
Yes, it is a web comic, with a comic section that is filled with these same type of pun threads.
comment* section
Wow, I can’t believe the filth that DYW allows in his comments.
Yeah, what rubbish.
And it’s Monday and a new chapter beginning… guess ehere I’m going next? 😀
When you’re moaning this much, it’s either terrible puns, or GREAT sex.
Why not both? Either way [expurgated due to explicit content and naughty words ]
I’m pretty sure both of them shower far too much to smell like garbage though.
Really? You’re pretty sure Walky showers?
I’m assuming he does occasionally.
We’ve seen him at least go into the shower room, that day he discovered what an uncircumcised penis looks like. And I suspect that if he didn’t Dorothy would have more than a few things to say on the matter.
“Also, yeah, you do kind of have an odor.”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/funk/
Unless they use a particularly unpleasant smelling body-soap.
Before dating Dorothy, Walky was dedicated to certain bachelor things, including KMart brand soap.
Dorothy may have influenced him to something else. And also, KMart might not exist anymore.
That was SEVEN years ago in meat-space – how long ago was that in comic time?
Well Kmart Canada was spun off as a separate entity and quickly bought by The Bay in 97 due to the management group wanting a quick return and not caring one iota about the company or the people – They were merged with Zellers – Killed off by Wal-Mart and it’s predatory corporate practices. They are no more. They have ceased to be.
What about Eaton’s? Still around? Haven’t been to Canada for a bit, but heard they were restructuring.
Obviously they’re relatively okay-smelling garbage. Walky in particular strikes me as likely to be made mostly up of candy wrappers and empty Doritos bags.
Don’t forget his “finishing note” of McNuggets and whichever sauce goes with.
If he really wants to be garbage, it has to be szechuan sauce.
Welcome to “The Landfill”.
Simply trash talk, if you ask me….
Too young to know better/Too old to REFUSE…
I should’ve known these comments would’ve been full of throwaway puns.
… Calling it now, this helps Amber feel better.
Let the shipping begin.
We’re a couple of misfits,
We’re a couple of misfits,
What’s the matter with misfits?
That’s where we fit in!
Dorothy: Why weren’t you at Math Practice?!
STOP BEING CUTE COMMENTS I’M NOT MADE OF STONE <3
I recognize this, yet my brain insisted on reading it to the tune of “We just figured out Blue’s Clues.”
Up on the roof, we can be garbage?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F_opWg9_qI
Nice. I like Rockapella’s cover of it as well.
YAY, Rockapella!
If you ever have the opportunity to see them live, jump on it. Their shows are a lot of fun!
Last panel Amber expression is very…puzzled? Uncertain? I like it. She was not expecting this input.
Very nearly a smile, which we wouldn’t recognize on her face.
Good title. Go for it.
Book 8 title, eh?
Did we ever figure out what the book 7 title was? Maybe I missed it.
by the time this strip published, i had settled very firmly on the idea of this being book 8’s title, should maybe rewrite the hovertext
It must remain as a warning to future generations about the futility of restraining one’s inner nature or some shit like that
About 15 years ago, I was visiting some friends in Lompoc, CA. One morning I rode my bicycle around at random, and that is how I discovered that Lompoc’s city landfill was nestled in a valley in the hills south of Lompoc, maybe a hundred vertical feet higher the city.
Up there, everything was garbage.
Nah, it certainly sold me on the idea.
Good, now we don’t have to try to convince you.
(Seriously this is a beautiful sentiment and I kind of want to like, tattoo it somewhere. I wouldn’t, but I might like, ballpoint pen it onto my arm where only I can see or something.)
Print up some temporary tattoos using a colour printer and temporary tattoo paper, well unless you like the freehand look that is.
Feeling like garbage can be one step towards fixing things. It’s interesting to see Walky be so accurate and serious, it points out the large internal conflicts he has.
Love the title make it happen! Unless Carla has another epic line.
The latter may happen. Carla has more epic lines than Casablanca.
Carla got Book 6, so she’s not due another cover for quite a while, no matter how cover-quoteable she is.
COMMENCE DA SHIPPIN’!
Amazi-Girl and Walky?
Wouldn’t that be… you know… incest?
Billie would think so.
Also is it just me or does Amber look slightly asian without her glasses?
I mean, her eyes have the same rough shape as Dina’s.
Then again maybe I’m sleepy I dunno.
I don’t see it myself but with Willis’ artstyle only the hair shape and skin colour seems to offer any visual clues to a character’s possible race.
How does hair shape imply race?
Not by itself but if for example, black curly hair could indicate the character is a black person, has some black in them or even be Mediterranean but you need more clues than that to be sure.
That’s the Amazi-Mask adding scleras. Amber has dot eyes like Walky and Joe when she’s not wearing her glasses.
Just one more costume power: SuperSclera!
Closely related to the Eye Glasses style, which is used sometimes here.
Dammit I ship it.
WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US WILLIS?
Cos he likes to launch more ships than the British Navy.
He must have more ships than the next two web comics, combined.
It’s the anti-Rain speech!
Huh. A support group built around mutual trash talk. That’s new.
“… But one day, for no reason, or no reason I know it or can remember anything happening which it meant anything, I stopped at what I was doing and said, John Payne, you are a piece of crud. You are a common, long-term drut. *Look* at it.
It’s not like this upset me or anything, why would it? It’s part of the truth to what I’m saying. You can’t disturb a nobody with evidence he’s a nobody. A nobody is not disturbed by anything significant. It’s like trying to disturb a bum by yelling ‘poor fuck’ at him. What’s new? he says. So when I said, John Payne, you final asshole, I just kept on riding. ”
Something about this interaction reminds me of “Typical.”
This is bizarrely healthy
The thing is, all the “supportive” people in their life are trying to affirm Walky’s and Amber’s value, and in doing so they are downplaying and dismissing their emotional place and state of mind. There’s been no “that’s a valid feeling to have” for them up until now.
Exactly. They haven’t been “allowed” to feel the negative feelings, which is a big part of how “supportive” people kinda fail. truly supportive people affirm that even the negative feelings are valid, and encourage experiencing them and working through them.
Walky is the guy she needs, but not the one she deserves right now. – A very butched Batman quote
….. okay, I KNOW you mean butchered, but now I can’t unsee it.
Whoa. We finally found the one person Amber needed most right now. Nice.
The least likely character, too. Who’d have guessed? Maybe Amber’s finally about to turn a corner.
I am so conflicted.
Because they’re not garbage. Either of them.
And even though this seems to be de-stressing for both of them, I can’t be sure it’s healthy. Not if what gives them (temporary) peace is reaffirming that self-assessment.
It can be positive. Sometimes, when the people around you care a lot and don’t want you to feel bad about yourself for things that you’re legitimately doing wrong it can become difficult to tell where the honesty ends and pity begins.
Sometimes you need to be able to look at yourself and have that “I fucked up, ” moment without someone telling you that it is not as bad as you think. It becomes unhealthy when you constantly carry it around in the back of your head and become convinced that every positive thing anyone says about you or suppress for you is a lie or out of pity. Then it becomes easy too cut ties with people so that you can’t be pitied or viewed as a burden.
It can also be read as “how DARE you not be okay, you’re not allowed do, stop not being okay this instant” and so make you feel like even more of a piece of shit for being a downer or whatever.
Hint: “don’t cry” is a line that you should hold down and NOT use 90% of the time it comes to your mind.
This feels very healthy to me. Both of them needing someone just acknowledging their flaws and accepting the angst they feel about it without judgement makes sense to me.
Agreeing with what’s already been said. There is enormous pressure on both of them to be “perfect”- a lot of which comes from their own selves, and how they have learned to be.
The thing is, when someone says they feel a thing, and you say that isn’t true, it’s a problem. I mean- if it’s a one off it’s not, but let’s go to an extreme example and talk about anorexia. If you tell an anorexic individual they’re not fat it’ll only serve to reinforce their genuine perception of themselves as fat. You need to help them to feel accepted EVEN IF THEY ARE FAT.
And this is what Amber and Walky have never, ever known. Nobody has told them it’s okag to be shit, screw up, to not be perfect. Nobody had ever taught them that they are loved even when they’re garbage.
And so this? This is SO. FUCKING. IMPORTANT. I can’t even put it into words (at 7am anyway). This is someone finally, FINALLY saying “okay, so you’re not perfect. That’s okay. We can be not perfect together and that’s absolutely fine.” I don’t think either of them would even begin to stop self sabotaging until someone made them feel that way.
I guess I can see y’all’s point.
It just bothers me, on a visceral level, to knowingly tell an untruth, to feed (what I believe to be) false and delusional beliefs, even I know that’s what the listener wants to hear.
She’s not delusional, she’s just being much too hard on herself. Her feelings (namely, the angst over how she feels that she’s garbage) are valid, they’re real. She’s not garbage, but she feels like she is, and that the difficulty she’s been having trying to change means it isn’t possible.
Having that inner turmoil not just acknowledged, but recognized by someone else is what she needed at this moment more than to be convinced she isn’t garbage. She’s not ready for that yet.
There’s a fine line though.
You want to validate the feelings, but the last thing you want to do is reinforce them.
Walky seems to be doing a good job, somewhat accidentally.
In that last panel, it WOULD be better if Walky said “up here we can feel like garbage”, but that’s not the place he is in his head. He feels like he IS garbage, rather than just feeling like garbage.
I do agree with you- there’s a difference between validating their feelings and agreeing that it’s actually who they are. But it’s still so important that they’re able to feel like they’re less than perfect and that’s okay, even if Walky’s wording could be a little better.
I got the feeling that Walky there is redefining ‘being garbage’ from a permanent brand to a temporary shitty state that one can get out of, and THAT is a very good viewpoint to take here.
Take a lesson from Inside Out – Sadness is a genuinely healthy emotion, and there is a place for it in life. It is valid to feel like worthless garbage sometimes. Much like pride, it’s dangerous to feel too much of it, but a little is healthy.
Counterintuitively enough… what Walky is saying here can actually be really helpful. A lot of people (myself included) do the sort of thing he’s complaining about Dorothy doing, but sometimes you just need somebody to acknowledge your feelings of garbageness. (Garbagity? Garbaglasdfkjdslfj?? I don’t know, I’m an English major, why should I know what the word for the state of being garbage is?) Sometimes, just having someone tell you that your feelings are valid is the first step to feeling better. (Or maybe I’m a weird person who doesn’t speak for all people. Probably that one.)
Garbigitude.
(To the alt-text) No.
Also while I agree that they are not garbage, I understand the need to indulge such an impulse.
Re: the alt text – please don’t, unless you plan on including a cd single duet of walky and amazi-girl singing”up here we can be garbage” in a Disney style meet-cute
“Here I stand and here I’ll stay. Let the garbage rain on. The stink never bothered me anyway.”
“Don’t let them smell, don’t let them see, be the clean girl that somehow smells like pee.”
Thanks to this comic, I know now that in Indiana, people put their garbage on the roofs of their buildings.
I thought they put it in the governor’s seat.
KA-CHING!
Hey now, trash might have been useful at some time …
Eh, Walky isnt saying that theyre garbage all the time. Hes saying its healthy to have a little self loathing once in a while which is true. The more you try to shut up those voices the louder they get. Sometimes people have periods like that, sometimes they overdo it. But the one thing no one else has done is validate that these are ambers feelings and shes allowed to have them once in a while.
Oh no, that’s a perfect title. This is perfect.
*Please* make that the title.
Reminds me of Pete Seeger’s performance of a great Bill Steele song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZesRAo5PBg
(I think the last verse is Pete’s)
No don’t change, that’s a great Book 8 title. Settle for that, please.
Amber’s starting to crush on Walky, and AG is already crushing on Sal. This is going to be one awkward SlipShine threesome.
*Enters the comments section planning on some joke about how Walky could be the second guy to jump from Dorothy to Amber if things don’t work out*
*Catches a glimpse of the twitter feed on the side*
!!! Oh my god, I need to go read Mary Worth to see what caused that reaction!
(I was not disappointed.)
Awwww. That little smile is magical.
Again I’m so onboard for the ongoing theme of unlikely people helping each other to be better.
Today’s comic is really the sweetest thing.
Alternative title: All problems can be averted through scheduling.
Amber, please, get some help.
+1000 to this.
Also: I’ve found that if I insult myself out of self-loathing, I can understand why my friends wouldn’t want to validate an insult.
So, a compromise that I’ve found helps sometimes is someone saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way; I felt that about myself when [I failed a class / got dumped by friend / didn’t get into art school] and it *sucks*. I feel you.” So, it’s like, empathizing without saying “Yes, you are, in fact, garbage.” Actually, technically this is what Walky is doing; not judging or trying to fix it, just empathizing so Amber doesn’t feel alone.
Sometimes I like to lay on the ground and feel like garbage. Want to join me?
Sometimes, you just need to feel the way you feel in peace and not have an avalanche of people try to fix it immediately. There is a time for help, and there is also a time to be real with yourself… to be genuinely in the present moment with the garbage thoughts.
On the other hand, Amber’s been fixated on the “I’m garbage” thing for a long time. This isn’t a passing moment.
Six days ago, comic time, Amber lost control and nearly killed a person.
This may be the first time since then that she finally is alone and can think. Solenoid says it beautifully. If Amber has any hope of getting better, she needs to be genuinely in the moment with her garbage thoughts.
Walky comes in at the perfect time and says exactly the right thing to allow them to be alone with their thoughts together.
No, I agree with that. Walky’s doing good here.
But Amber was on the “I’m a monster” train long before the stabby time. This isn’t a passing thing and reinforcing those thoughts is dangerous.
Yes, Amber, you’re not the only one with disabling self-esteem issues!
This resonates with me in an odd way as someone with crippling self-esteem issues. I can’t say I really want to feel like garbage, but I just find it frustrating when people give me empty “oh no you’re not garbage you’re perfect” comments. I know I’m not perfect and so I know those comments are lies and empty words and that’s not going to make me feel better. A token gesture born of social norms doesn’t convince me I’m not garbage, if anything the lack of any actual effort or empathy just reinforces how garbage I am.
Surely there’s a middle ground? I mean, per my comments above, I’m not going to tell the opposite lie, that they’re perfect. My instinct is to try to guide them toward reality (not away) and an honest self-assessment, which is usually somewhere in-between.
(er, for ‘honest’ read ‘accurate’. I didn’t mean to suggest they’re being consciously or deliberately untruthful.)
well that would be you putting in the effort to empathize and help, it’s not just empty words and token gestures, it’s an effort to help get the person to genuinely give an accurate self assessment of themselves to feel better, which is a much better approach.
You don’t have to want to feel like garbage to have a need of a safe place to go feel like garbage.
“And together, we can be garbage!”
Garbage League: Cry for Garbage.
Well done, made me smile 😀
I love “up here we can be garbage” for a book title
me too
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned
Immaculate
I knew that cite immediately, because I bought that album on vinyl, WHEN VINYL WAS ALL THERE WAS.
Hug each other you friggiin’ nerds
Garbage was quite a cool band back in the day….
I am really, really bored of Amber. I hope we can get some quicker character development for her, her angst story line has really been lost in the weeds for me
This is very weird and sweet.
Look at theese depressed peeps openly talking about being garbage
What isn’t shown is that I’m on the other side of the roof…
It’s certainly frustrating when people say positive things about you when they don’t feel true…
all those in favor of ‘up here we can be garbage’ say aye, all those opposed, say nay
We’re all garbage up here, Georgie.
“We’re all garbage up here, Georgie.”
Lol, ninja’d.
It’s due to the floating, of course. They all float.
I like how you move the hoodie string, because of the wind.
Garbage can be a beautiful thing, especially if Shirley Manson is involved.
I love this.
I’ve had a terrible time these last few months. I’m overworked and I feel like my studies aren’t going as well as they should. Every time I’ve aired these worries, people have told me that I can do it, I am good enough, I am smart and I am able to focus and do well, and… well, it didn’t. I’m four and a half years into my university studies and I just flunked my first exam.
And suddenly I feel like people are listening to me. My family and friends are acknowledging the fact that I am not feeling okay and that this is starting to become too much for me. And I really, really needed that! Just being able to say that stuff is hard and that I might not make it, makes me more motivated to actually push through.
I think it’s really good that Walky and Amber can talk about not feeling good enough together. Because sometimes, you just need to me honest about not feeling that you are good enough, feeling that it’s all just too much.
And I really hope that they both seek assistance with their struggles as well. I’m trying to seek help to get my studies back on track after I failed my exam, to keep working even though it’s hard, and to seek assistance from my friends and family now that they understand how hard it is for me.
God do I know this feeling. But “fortunately” I don’t have a lot of people around me telling me I’m not garbage. But at least I have anti-depressants to help.
I definitely relate, but both Walky and Amber do need to address the issues that brought them to that rooftop. Just maybe later. Sometimes you just need a breather and just want to exist as your garbage self.
Which is what Dorothy doesn’t get: Walky isn’t just having trouble with math, he is dealing with how stuff came so easily to him and now that it isn’t, well, what does that make him? And no amount of tutoring is going to help that part of it.
I won’t talk you out of that title. It’s almost poetic. Sometimes being told we are great just makes us feel guilty or inadequate. Sometimes we need a place to be flawed human beings.
PS: I’m really sorry for being so sporadic in my posts. I’m working on finding a place near my friends and away from so much concentrated bigotry. Then my dog was diagnosed with kidney failure. I took care of her as best as I could. I seen her in pain. There was blood. We had to make the hard decision. I had to go alone. I felt her die. We buried her by the woods in our front yard. The hole was deep (it was dug with a tractor). She was in her coat and wrapped in her favorite blanket. Dad said he wants to plant flowers there in the spring. I need to get back to looking for places, but right now I need to cuddle my cat and drive to dad’s often to spend time with my other dog who just lost her best friend. So odds are my posts will be sporadic for a while yet.
And to all who celebrate this time of year, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Habari Gani?, Blessed Yull, Happy Boxing Day, Merry and Enlightened Newtonmas, Happy Ōmisoka, and Happy holidays to one and all.
I’m totally pro “up here we can be garbage” for Book 8 title.
Sorry, I’m not always good at helping people out of bad decisions.
After 3 and a half days of (almost) nonstop reading, I’ve finally caught up to the present comic. It feels strange to know this comic started in 2010, feels so long ago, especially remembering Joyce meeting Dorothy for the first time and GASP
“We can be garbaaaaage, for just one day…”
Aw yeah, Amber finally got someone who can make her feel understood <3
Thinking some more about what others have said, I think some of my reaction is to the specific use of the word “garbage”.
To me, that doesn’t merely mean “flawed” or “imperfect” (or “normal” or “human”), it means “utterly without worth, suitable only to be thrown away.”
The first, I can support. The second, I can only say (or think), “no, that’s not true, that is wrong.”
And I’m not going to support or validate that belief, which is symptomatic of a broken thought process, of mental illness, any more than I’m going to pile more blankets on top of a flu patient because hey, if that’s your thing, you go and have that fever, your brain’s not 100% cooked yet!
Also?
People earnestly believing and feeling stuff that is not true, that is counterfactual, is a big part of why our country is in such a mess right now. Mostly I stay quiet, knowing that I’ll never be able to convince them that what they’ve been told is bullshit. But I refuse to join the parade of liars who smile and say, “Yes, that’s absolutely right.”
You still seem to be conflating “I feel like X” with “I am X”. Which a lot of people do, and yes it is a problem. But the solution isn’t to only engage with the “I am X” part of things, it’s to separate and clarify those two things, and learn to tell them apart well, so that you can validate the “I feel like X” without feeding the “I am X” (or while fighting the latter).
And probably a lot of the confusion here is from Walky, like many people, saying something like “I am garbage” when he *means* “I feel like garbage”. It takes experience to tell when someone is doing that, and even then there’s guesswork involved, so, ideally it’s best to check with the person to make sure you’re understanding each other.
As StClair says, Amber at least appears to mean “I am garbage”. Whether Walky means it as well or not, reinforcing that opinion in Amber is not a good thing. Validating her feelings is, which makes it a tricky line to walk.
I remember hearing once of a language/culture that didn’t have a way to say “I am sad”. They could only phrase it as “I have a sadness”. Probably apocryphal, but a nice way to avoid that conflation.
Poking around the Internets finds this, from Grant Morrison’s Invisibles, though I think I heard the concept earlier.
In this context, I do take Amber’s statements to be self-assessments of worth(lessness), not emotional state. I am inclined, though perhaps not as strongly, to do the same for Walky.
I suppose I will have to wait for clarification.
True, amber does seem to think her feelings are facts :/ and both of them might not have ever thought about the difference between feelings and facts, so they might not have the awareness to even be sure of what they mean. I wish this was taught in schools :p
Feelings and facts both matter, and when people don’t distinguish between the two, well, crap like this happens. One can be perfectly aware that the feelings have nothing to do with reality, and still those feelings *exist* and they need to be acknowledged and processed before they’ll let go.
The truth matters, maybe now more than ever.
And even if I don’t have a fix for the problem, a cure for the illness, I will not sell snake oil, or offer a sugar pill and a shrug: “If they want to get better, they will.”
I hear what you are saying, you want to stand for the truth. This makes total sense to me, but …. where people’s idea of who they should be and who they are is involved, the actual truth is rather hard to determine.
If I feel like shit for whatever reason and friends tell how great and intelligent and whatever I am and that i can pull it off i get annoyed and feel even worse because they don’t take my concerns seriously. Then I either have to dramatize in the hope that they will listen, or shut up and feel like no one actually sees who I am (and still is my friend).
The people who deal with it best actually manage to ask why I feel that way and that way get me to talking and thinking about what my mind tells me. And it’s much easier to catch yourself talking bullish that way than have others telling you you’re talking bullshit.
Though “garbage” really implies they feel like they have no worth at all, and that’s very worrying. But still, it’s not their job to not make you worried.
Nope, it’s not (their job).
Neither is it mine to tell them lies, even the one(s) they seem to want to hear.
Like the man said: “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that; no I won’t do that.”
Walky’s not lying to Amber. He’s essentially saying “yeah, I know how you feel”, and letting it be.
She does need to be assured that she has worth despite her flaws. It’s just that she can’t get there directly from here. That’s why her friends trying to pull her in that direction all failed and were pushed away. She’s going to have to take a slower and more circuitous route to get there.
I didn’t say telling people what they want to hear helps. I said asking questions, listening, and giving people a chance to listen to themselves helps. When dealing with people and their unrealistically high expectations of themselves or else in the dumps.
Or you can decide you don’t want to help.
Dealing with people who are not able to listen to what they are saying and who are talking about how whoever they think gets a better deal from life than they do is the root of all evil and must be destroyed is a different kettle of fish. I have no solution for those.
…right now, I’m struggling with my studies a lot. There are objective reasons for that, there are subjective reasons for that; in the end, sometimes I try to start a sentence to my parents with “So, I might flunk out”.
I’m ALWAYS, IMMEDIATELY showered in a bunch of NO YOU WON’Ts. They utterly refuse to even DISCUSS the possibility. Nope, flat denial, I should not put myself down, etc.
And like… it’s not helping my anxiety. It’s very freeing to talk through a horrible-seeming scenario, discover that it’s not, in fact, the end of the world and start working on the task without all the weird pointless pressure attached to it. IT GETS EASIER IF I ACKNOWLEDGE I MIGHT FAIL.
THAT IS A PERFECT TITLE DAVID
why would I it’s a great title.
Why would anybody talk you -out- of it?
Down here, everybody floats.