Enlightenment

I think it means more if you do all that yogi stuff FIRST though. You have to ACTUALLY walk around the mountain before ending up back at home MEANS anything... "back again" isn't growth unless first you WENT "there." ... As Bilbo might say.

Kerin Schiesser

I want to sign up for a weekly seminar of your half remembered religious fables.

Mitchell Sealy

Hannelore's story here reminds me of the story of the Buddha (the only one Westerners know about) I read when I was a kid. At first, he went around doing the whole yogi thing, fasting and meditating and... other things |I no longer remember. But after a while, he realized all that stuff was mere vanity, and so he ate and put on clean clothes and... did something else. Sorry, I really don't remember much. :-\ Hitting "enter" anyway.

Daryl Sawyer

When you are shoveling poop and the choice is between "wrong shovel" and "hands" I would say that the wrong shovel never looked sooooo right.

James Roy

contact the Unicode Consortium!! the campaign to replace the current poop emoji with panel 5 (hereinafter referred to as The Improved Poop Emoji) begins today!!

Joe

People with similar problems took Hannelore as their avatar, and if she gets all better, they lose her. Not only do they lose her, they may now face suggestions that they, too, could become all better if only they had more grit. Either she was never really just like them, and they lose, or she was just like them and can be used as a stick to beat them with, and they lose. In that position, I would try to look at her as someone who lucked into the right combination of genetics, background, and circumstance and got her feet under her, and be happy for her without resentment. I'm not in that position, though. Problems I don't have are easy for me to overcome.

Dammit, it should've gone to the yesterday's comic, but still: What's the problem with the Hanners here? She's questionably content.

Evgeniy Semyonov

Folks so far the *only* thing we've seen her do that she had trouble doing before is hug someone. And she's done that get journey.

Verteiron

I wrote “Hanners was gone.” Autocorrect changed it to “is as gone.” I don’t mind this stuff happening since it shows I can still out wit a computer.

Philip D Jones

A lot of very interesting comment about the therapeutic journey. But we are on the verge of a flame war over a fictional character in a fantasy universe. And there is no indication how long Hanners is as gone. Low-orbit yoga and deep-sea group therapy must have taken some time. I know from experience therapeutic breakthroughs often happen like a pot coming to a boil. It is like a “spill-over” event. Anyway, it’s just a comic. And still have a crush on Hanners. And I think Claire’s mom is hot.

Philip D Jones

Love this comic! People work for years and years to get to that epiphany moment, but when you get there, it's always amazing how quickly things can change

Saketh Kasibatla

Whoa. To quote Melvin Jones, founder of Lions International "You can't get very far until you start doing something for somebody else." and it's true. you learn more about yourself through service for others than you would just doing for yourself.

Technoir

It doesn't just "Seem" instantaneous. It's pretty clearly described as instantaneous. She toughed it out for a week and then came to an epiphany that made everything better.

Mitchell Sealy

She takes the hotdog and hands the vendor a twenty, which the vendor pockets. "Where's my change?" she asks. "Change comes from within."

Tom Carlson

I can attest that you can learn a lot about yourself (and everyone around you) when doing craptastic work that has to get done and you'd really really rather not have to do. (US Army, food service, etc)

Todd Beaubien

Apparently yaks also don't smell as bad as normal cows because their fur is too dense to contract any odor. I've also never been near a yak in my life, so take that with a grain of salt.

I'm a bit disappointed. I volunteer at a clinic that helps people with mental disorders, some of which are severe OCD which manifests as germaphobia and such. You don't just "get over" it. I understand this has ben a long development, but since this development happened mostly off-screen it seems pretty instantaneous. I can't help but feel that a more realistic approach would be "...and then I I went on a new medication that's been really helpful too!"

MalkToast

Totally the wrong kind of shovel, though... I can see why it was hard lol.

David Pipes

Well, no, it was about slow and steady progress. Then she left for a month and came back with a story about how she cured herself in a week.

Mitchell Sealy

Yak yak yak.

Summer Sudbrink

Hannelore's storyline is about slow, but steady progress from almost completely disfunctional childhood on a space station towards an incredibly well-adjusted and adapted human being. So this is not as much a single instant that "cured" her, it's a logical conclusion of the whole life of hard work. And yes, though neurochemistry plays a big role in it (and Hanners tried a lot of different meds), inner progress through experience, reflection and self-care helps a lot too. Of course, my own problems are comparatively minor, but I am really happy for her, as I remember my own joy of overcoming some mental problems and feeling a great sense of achievement. And no, I don't think she's "instantly completely cured" or "magically became normal", and there are probably still a lot of problems she will have to work through, but for now let's just be happy for her.

Evgeniy Semyonov

And nose piercing.

Evgeniy Semyonov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECiMKvhGTU8

Dancing on the Edge of Sanity

Heh, you said holy shit (see fifth panel)

Dancing on the Edge of Sanity

Wow she also removed all her earrings

Is it just me, or does the fifth panel look like it belongs on a shirt?

Nalvor

It's a monastery, that shovel probably caused more than just this one enlightenment. Everyone is used to it by now.

Massively reduced aversion points to second path.

Data uplink is still buffering.

Dean Reilly

Missed you Hanners

SheepFace2000

So she had an... E-poo-phiny?

Conor Hawkins

There is no shovel.

Thomas Boys

That face in panel 3 is definitely the thousand yard stare of "I've seen some shit" Literally

Dylan T

Holy shit, I was joking, but I actually kinda called it? Just the wrong species.

Valraven

Poop in of itself is disgusting, but it’s what’s inside that counts. Namely bacteria, diseases, and viruses that can potentially kill you. There’s a reason why our mortality rate dropped after our sewage systems improved. I’m glad to see Hannelore has gotten over some of the severe side of her anxieties, but I hope she hasn’t swung in the opposite direction now or she could have a relapse after eating at a place of dubious hygiene and food quality.

Brent Catherman

Also, her tan is awesome.

Matthias Urlichs

See also Ajahn Brahm “Who ordered this truckload of dung!?” - he's a funny bloke, and chimes right in with this

Ísabel Pirsic

We definitely need an emoji of meditating-enlightened-blissed-out poop along with the grinning one we have now.

Matthias Urlichs

Heh "I shoveled a lot of poop, so now I can hug you." Faye will approve

Bagge

Some revulsion and some learned fears are based in reality and for good historical/evolutionary reasons. However, a lot of first-world "ick" is just over-reaction, like a physical allergy.

Trigon Manthree

Pintsize will approve. As will May

Bagge

Everyone learns their deep life lessons somewhere.

Bagge

or.... cows are low-fur content yaks?

Bagge

Yak. Yak never changes.... but yak changes Hannelore.

Brian English

That poop looks like it just took a dump

darklion

Oh, Dear Gods! Did you *have* to evoke the yellow and green Diapers of Death?

Bill Hall

Now Hannelore can enjoy a street cart hotdog, so long as the vendor makes her one with everything.

William Burns

Yeah, I'm kind of hoping for a certain amount of residual germphobia, followed by her kicking herself for it. That always happens to me when I work through something like this. That said, I don't feel like it would need to be the very next strip. I mean, sure, it would be kind of fun to see her backing off and whipping out the alcohol gel in panel 1 of next page, but there's many ways a natural process could work out. It can be frustrating to see somebody recovering from a neurosis without any apparent difficulty, but it's important to remember you don't see the person all of the time, and sometimes you just miss it. This is especially true for people in web comics, TV shows, movies, manga, and stuff, because we only see the portions of their lives that are actually depicted.

Some Ed

Before enlightenment, chop yak hair and haul poop. After enlightenment, chop yak hair and haul poop. Now the shit-shovel will have to be used to prop up the house.

Clifton Royston

Yeah, sure. But has she encountered a diaper with a not-completely-contained poop explosion? I think not!

BobC

I love this for hannelore, overcoming and respecting her mental illnesses at the same time as she works to utilize her privileges for good.

Leona

Existenchialism

JPMK! {verb}

there is no spoon

SpookyPenguin

Yeah the next day's strip is gonna inform a <i>lot</i> of my feelings here. If it's just Hanners realizing on an intellectual level she shouldn't be grossed out, that's great. If it's her having that realization and then being done with germphobia forever...😬

Seth Aaron Hershman has they she pronouns

Hopefully not Sven

Laura-Kathleen Redman

Dr. Slump just called... Arale wants the intellectual rights to her original poop emoji back!

I was right! It was Mongolia!

Hugh Eckert

Fully self-actualised activist Hanners and fractionally-woke Spookybot Yay hanging out in the same town. ALL OTHER THREADS ARE NOW SECONDARY TO ME UNTIL THESE TWO INTERSECT.

Leaflemming

Dora: "Wow. That's pretty deep." Hanners: "Yes. Yes, it was. And it smelled terrible."

awgiedawgie

While it is a significant breakthrough, her compulsion isn't necessarily cured. She has just taken a major step in handling the intervening <i>lack</i> of cleanliness.

awgiedawgie

So the question is, if you have your insight through poop, is that first path or second path?

Abhayakara

To be fair, she had already changed a lot over the time we knew her. And her confrontation with her mother was a big emotional event. But, yeah, *completely* overcoming it in a week isn’t that likely. I know folks who have somewhat similar symptoms and making progress has taken *a lot* of exposure therapy.

Bruce Steinberg

Human poop. I'm pretty sure the latrines weren't for the Yaks. :)

Czarzhan

This ain't it, chief

BeatButton

I kind of expected there to be more to her journey of growth and recovery than "I just toughed it out for a week and suddenly overcame my lifelong neuroses."

Mitchell Sealy

I'm calling it now. Hanners is gonna smooch someone finally.

Joel Bateman

By making her tanner. I mean, when he gave her super short hair, I was hooked.

Joel Bateman

Gotta say that it's a nice epiphany, but 99 per cent of the work was done when she decided that if cleaning the latrines needed doing, she would do it.

I really hope this means that Hanners can go find some firemen for hot sexy fun times now. If she can handle Yak poop, she can deal with some bodily fluids, by golly. Go, go, Hanners!

soooo if her compulsion for cleanliness is... um cured... what takes it's place. OCD is a compulsion disorder I've seen how it usually happens when people cure compulsions, all they end up doing is replacing one with another

The Shadow's Lair

The poop has eyes and a mouth. It's the zen version of the emoji

Michael Boettger

(to the tune of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song:) Yaks Are Just Cows With Extra Fur

Magic Chopstick Games

Scatoexistentialism?

ERRORCODE616

So keen for Winslow to meet up with his ai friends. Also he’s gotta meet Yaaaaaaaay Newfriend

Daniel Burnett

Also Jeph can we please have a comic of Hanners making friends with a yak? I feel the world needs this wholesomeness.

Samantha Yeaman

so is Winslow still shoveling?

Peter McDevitt

That is a VERY Hanners point of view.

R L

Crying about a drawing. . . Again.

Ginaelisa Cortez

Goddammit Jeph, how can you possibly make Hanners HOTTER than she already was?

Everett Bradshaw

Neat

Uhhh, but - how?... you know what, if it works, it works.

Lord Crusade

I am so proud of Hanners right now, she has come so far and experienced so much growth. &lt;3

Samantha Yeaman