209: Kayak

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Kayak
Man, there's future *everywhere*.
Title text: Man, there's future *everywhere*.

Explanation

Beret Guy invites Cueball to join him in a two-seat kayak. Cueball is confused by this and asks why Beret Guy is in possession of a two-seat kayak. Beret Guy doesn't answer the question directly, instead encouraging Cueball to go on an adventure with him and 'find out' what its purpose is. Beret Guy's mindset is similar to existentialism, the belief that life has no intrinsic purpose, that you should simply 'go along for the ride' and come up with your own reason for doing so. Similarly, Beret Guy encourages Cueball to go on a journey with him with no idea about where they're going, simply for the sake of going on a journey. Beret Guy emphatically notes that 'the future is a big place', which Cueball takes to mean that the kayak can travel through time. Beret Guy points out that everything is travelling through time, which is technically accurate, as time is always moving forward, so everything is, in a way, 'travelling through time'... towards the future. Beret Guy's next comment, that the kayak also travels through water, is fairly straightforward.

The title text echoes Beret Guy's comment about time: if everything is travelling through time towards the future, then the future must be 'everywhere'. However, it may be more accurate to say that the present is everywhere, as we can only ever exist in the present, because the future by definition hasn't happened yet.

Transcript

[Beret Guy in a kayak is talking to person on pier.]

Beret Guy: Come explore the future with me!
Cueball: Huh? What's that you're in?
Beret Guy: A two seat kayak!
Cueball: I see, but why do you have it?
Beret Guy: We'll find out! The future is a big place!
Cueball: So the kayak travels through time?
Beret Guy: Sure! Just like everything else! It also goes over water. Come on!


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Discussion

I have successfully invented a police box that travels through time. All I need is a way to change the travel speed from the default 60-second-per-minute and we'd have an operational TARDIS! 141.101.99.237 05:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC) Is the title text a reference to Calvin and Hobbes? "There's treasure everywhere!" --173.245.48.78 19:47, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The sentence in the third paragraph which begins with the word "However" is reading into the original comic something which is not actually in the original comic. It is probably true that Randall wanted the reader to think that Beret Guy in panel one was implying that the kayak could "travel through time in a science fiction sense" but there is nothing in the comic to suggest that Cueball thinks that the kayak "can travel through time in a science fiction sense."

I have a time machine but it only travels at a rate of one second per second and it can't go back in time.

xkcd Volume 0 (book)

below the strip, the book has

SICHINGULUUNGUUNG HSICHINGULUUNGATAQANM-

SICHINGULUUNGSICHINGQSICHINGN NUATAQAN

See also similar lettering above Parody Week: A Softer World on the same page, 11002. 172.69.214.109 (talk) 23:10, 11 January 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)