Comic #5885: old

Description

Here’s a detailed description of the comic:

Panel 1:

A young boy is sitting in a room, asking a man (presumably his father) in a chair, "Dad, what's it like getting old?"
The man, wearing glasses, responds, "You get more and more particular while becoming more and more generic."

Panel 2:

The man continues, "I have a complex path full of specific hardships, victories, ailments… In that way I'm far more different from my friends than you are from yours."
The boy listens attentively.

Panel 3:

The man elaborates, "But the result of the particulars is a middle-aged man who has bog-standard worries. He’s more familiar with death now. His old friends seem crazily distant to him, like faded memories under the weight of intrusions."

Panel 4:

The father reflects, "Every year, young people are more mysterious to him and the rebels from his childhood now appear in commercials to sell him medicine."

Panel 5:

The man continues, "He sits, and he looks out, his bones are cold, the sunrise pink is fuzzy until he puts on his glasses. He sips a brand of coffee he settled on 20 years ago, and which he will drink until he dies."

Panel 6:

He shares, "His aching knees are Steve’s tired mornings or Joe’s bad digestion or Dave’s sadness. Dan’s kids won’t call him, Bob never had any, Eric isn’t as smart as he hoped he was. All different but identical."

Panel 7:

Panel 8:

The boy continues, "At 8 you start cleaning the cat shit."
The man reflects with a serious tone, with a speech bubble saying, "Life is misery."

Bottom Panel:

The comic is stylized, with a simple, colorful art style and a logo that says "smbc-comics.com."

This comic humorously contrasts the perspective of aging against the simplicity of childhood, emphasizing feelings of nostalgia and disillusionment.