We just hit JEFbot #500, y’all! Just had to mention that. I’ll write up a blog post about it in the next couple of days while I figure out fiendishly awesome ways to celebrate with you. Anyway, on to the comic at hand…
So I really hope today’s comic strip isn’t just me. I hope that it’s getting harder for most (well at least some) of you to sort out all of those squishy emotions and thoughts you have spilling around in your skull as you get older. And, yes, while it’s fairly easy to distinguish between straight-up “happy” and “sad”, it’s harder to tell the difference between “I’m tired” from “I’m depressed” from “I’m hungry” these days than I’d like to admit.
So howzabout you all? Are you in touch with your emotions or do you find them as elusive and mysterious as I do? Or am I just losing my mind and should seek professional help immediately?
oddly, these come more frequently with age. oh the dangers of having a lot of time to yourself with your own thoughts….
SO true, Maesonic – time alone with your thoughts can be BAAAAD. i’m just lucky maintaining JEFbot keeps my mind occupied 98% of the time. but the other 2%… well. not a fun time.
but, hey! congrats on achieving the Shades of Firsting for this special strip! wear them well: these introduce calming agents into your brain via your cornea, giving you only happy thoughts:
😎
Maesonic, I am drinking chicken soup out of that exact same Doctor Who mug. Great minds, my friend.
also, happy 500 posts!!!
WOO! thanks, man!
Hey Jeff. You really have feelings – most of the times i feel like some kind of robot… But honestly, you don’t know that you need professional help before you’ve gone there and asked if you need it. I guess most of the people nowadays could use it and it’s a great thing. In Germany it’s hard to get an appointment at one of those docs, but hey thanks to our great health system it’s free then.
And I will get the Shades of firsting one time! You’ve got to have aims in live 😉
heh. i do have feelings, Boeltier – if only i could decipher them! as far as needing professional help, that remains to be seen. i think, in a lot of ways, this comic – and putting my thoughts and emotions into it – supplies most of the therapy i need!
and good luck on future Shades!
Congratulations on reaching 500. Cheers. Heres for another 500. Love u bot.
thanks for the congrats, Jf#300! hard to believe this whole thing has been going on for 500 strips. love u back!
I feel the same way jefBOT. I feel depressed for about four months during winter (cold hell…) but come May I am usually back to my happy stupid self. Also, you used pretty big words ib this strip. Was it to sound philosophical or to teach us new words ?
ooh, i wouldn’t do well in “cold hell,” DAS – i think it’s why i’ll probably stay in sunny southern california for the foreseeable future! and the words i used in the strip were just expressing how i (and bot!) feel. wasn’t trying to be overly pedantic! 🙂
I need to look those words up now…
And by Holy Emperor of Terra I will buy your merch bot. Problem is, everytime i managed to scrounge a sum of money “the threads of fate” begins to loosen and leave me tangled with more “money eating situation”. Example: Collected around usd50, then my car right rear tyre “suddenly” had bumps. Had to pay the workshop Usd70 to replace it.
i appreciate that, Jf#300, but i completely understand life sometimes has other priorities than BOTmerch! get it when you can; i have no plans on taking the BOTshop down anytime soon. 🙂
It’s so true. I feel it comes with emotional maturity/experience. The more you live through and experience, the more you have going on up there in the ol’ noggin. It almost gets to the point where the only time you really know what you’re feeling is when you are at an extreme end of the emotional spectrum.
Or maybe we get addicted to feeling extremely happy or extremely sad, and when we’re in the middle we miss the certainty of what we were feeling when we knew we were happy or sad.
i think you’re right, Saeed – the older we get, the more stuff gets logged in the “ol’ noggin.” when we’re kids, i think the emotions are more pure cuz we don’t have much to compare them against!
And on another note. I too was once depressed. Took me 1 year and a debt amounting to a month’s wage to figure it out. When that happens you could only do 3 things. 1. Repair your emotions. Find out what is wrong and try to do something about it. 2. Turn to alcohol. ( i dont condone this because its not productive ). 3. Find someone or something to plug it.
It may be just me or maybe its because i dont get professional treatment but i believe that depression can be remedied just by laughing. Laugh the shit out of yourself. Find a sitcom and laugh like theres no tommorow.
Be strong bot and may the force be with you.
laughing and humor do help a lot with helping when you’re down, Jf#300! sometimes you just need something to distract yourself from whatever you’re dwelling on. and fortunately, i’ve never been addicted to anything. (well, maybe coffee.) i don’t even like drinking alcohol much anymore cuz i hate dealing with hangovers – even tiny ones – the next day!
Lol. I too hate hangovers. Had 1 too many drinks last xmas of 2012 and do i dread the aftertaste of alchohol. Blerghhh!
i still don’t drink Malibu Rum due to getting crazy drunk on it several years ago, Jf#300!
Def happens to me too. :/ I try to figure out how I’m feeling at hit a wall. The human brain is a strange thing.
Also, HAPPY 500! Glad to be here through most of it 🙂
glad you can relate, Dj. i think we just need to feel the feels at times. or not feel the feels.
and, woo! thanks for the congrats, and for sticking with this comic for so long! now THAT makes me unconfusedly happy! 😀
So many feels. :O
too many feels, TCG!
500!!!
Yeah, I sort of feel that way… except everything mentioned above.
“I want loud dubstep.” Plays John Mayer.
“I want ice cream.” Eats banana.
“I think I’ll watch a movie on TV.” Watches How It’s Made.
Decisions like these just happen, without us really thinking.
Amirite?
True. Dont get me started on wanting to play games but in the end i wanted sleep more badly.
woo! 500!
and yeah, you’re right – i can’t tell you how many “how it’s made” i’ve watched. especially since it always seems to be on and/or i can just dial it up on netflix. it’s great to have on in the background while i’m working on JEFbot! 🙂
Happy 500! And no, it never gets any easier to figure that stuff out but you do realize that it doesn’t matter as much cause you have so much more to think about, so much more to experience, so much more that you want to experience that you just sort of go with the emotional flow.
i think “going with the emotional flow” is great advice, TPC! as long as it isn’t a lava flow and/or doesn’t head over a waterfall. 🙂
If you have to ask if you’re ecstatic, then no, no you’re not. Except maybe ironically.
But 500 strips certainly gives you an unironic reason, if you need one! Congratulations and thanks for brightening my day a couple times a week.
i’m pretty sure i’m unironically ecstatic about hitting 500, Sarah W. it’s just so hard to tell! arrrghh! 😉
thanks for the congrats! brightened days are awesome. 🙂
Happy 500!
I really like how you did the background in this one.
thanks, Bill! i try not to use the blur filter too much, as i think some artists use it to mask sloppy drawings, but i did want it to feel like bot and corn were far away from the surrounding mountains and somewhat isolated. glad you dug it! 🙂
Good Morning BOTvillians!
I lock away emotions. They’re messy. Ok ok, those that know me know that’s an outright lie. I try not to hold them in. According to my Abuela (Grandma fer ya non Spanish folks) they make you constipated if you hold them in. I don’t know how true that part is but I just think it’s better to let them out to be what they are then to try and bottle them up. But yes I do get your point. Sometimes I am sad for no good reason, other times I get depressed for the littlest thing. Being a woman it’s easier to explain away with PMS and the change so to speak but sometimes….it just….is.
And now….on to the good stuff!
HAPPY 500th Strip Bot!!!!!
i’m pretty good at locking away emotions too, Pixie. i do it so well i think i lost the key a long time ago! heheh. (although you wouldn’t know it from how un-constipated i am.) ick.
and thanks for the Happy 500th! party to come soon! 😀
NOT JUST YOU! In fact, I just had this conversation with a friend yesterday. The purity of youthful emotion is gradually eroded by experience, and what was black and white becomes inexorably gray. The highs are lower and the lows are higher. And adulthood loses the clear delineations of season and time that youth has to offer, as one day blurs into the next.
On the other hand, this day stands out from the blur. HAPPY 500th!
very true, Brad L. – i’m not sure which i liked better, the black and whites or the levels of gray. i think i might go crazy if all those highs and lows were hitting me everyday but they were a bit more fun. hmmm.
but, yes! 500! WOOOOO! 😀
Believe you me, you do not want extreme highs and lows. I do both on a regular basis, and they do nothing but exhaust you. I’d lovelovelove a medium setting.
i pretty much enjoy the “medium setting” but would like to be able to turn it up and down at will, Iggy. “at will” being the operative words. 🙂
A quiet mind is the loudest one, Bot. Blast some music, play a video game, throw yourself into a project or some other kind of work.
JEFbot pretty much occupies most of my brain’s cycles these days, Anime fan. if i didn’t have that, my mind would not be a fun place to be right now. or, yeah – videogames and books would be occupying those cycles, so i guess i’d be fine. 🙂
I find it fairly easy to identify what emotions I’m feeling most of the time.
enjoy it while it lasts, Fijiman! 😉
Isn’t it that way with pretty much everything?
yup.
I used to. Lately with the out of control depression I just don’t know that I feel anything other than despair. Most days I feel like I’m just going through everything and not really seeing it.
It helps now that I sleep more than I used to though, depression and just feeling unsure if whether or not you’re depressed or happy is a mindtrip when you’re barely able to stay coherent.
yeah, sleep – or the lack of it – really affects my mood, too, Descolada. when i don’t get enough i just feel like another person, so i’m glad you’re getting more than you used to. hope you know you’re not alone; despair sucks.
I sleep more than I used to as well. I used to chug energy drinks when I worked many hours at two or three jobs. I only slept for two hours a day. The energy drinks were affecting my blood pressure and nerves and I needed to wean myself off of them. I noticed that my body wanted to get four hours of sleep daily. I told my doctor that I was worried that my body now wanted a whole four hours of sleep daily. She told me I really should be getting six hours of sleep daily. I’m now getting this much sleep and I’m no longer addicted to energy drinks.
Happy 500!
To be fair, I’ve never have been good at expressing my emotions, even to myself. Sometimes I think about my feelings on something for days, before I realize how I actually felt.
Yes I’ve had depression, it’s not fun and I had it for maybe 5 years, I got over it in a weird way by saying to myself, that’s it’s I’m done with this stuff it’s time to move on. Though I suppose for most people going to a psychiatrist would be the right option.
As a kid I was the same as I am now, except I fought a lot of people that bullies other kids.. Which made me a bully I suppose, but I only did that because it was the only thing that actually made me feel upset, and people being safe made me happy I suppose.
woo! 500! thanks, Satoshieyes!
yeah, it’s funny how you have to think about how you’re feeling just to understand how you’re actually feeling. ugh. weird. keeping busy is what i do to not fall into a “depressed” state, which is probably similar to your decision to “move on.”
and since i hate bullies, i think you stopping them from bullying others is a good thing.
I have had issues with depression myself to the point of considering offing myself by slashing my wrists. If you’ve ever seen how I bleed when I get cut it would be easy to see why I’d choose this method of offing myself. I haven’t had this depression lately, however.
I hate bullies with a passion! The only good thing I can say about them is that dealing with them is what originally prompted me to take up a workout program and learn how to fight. Otherwise, I might still be overweight and out of shape. Granted, I need physical fitness to do some of my hobbies (such as rock climbing and skateboarding), but if I didn’t have a certain level of physical fitness I might not have taken up these hobbies in the first place.
Unhappy is the new happy. Congratulations on 500!!! That’s HUGE! And always brilliant.
woo! then i’m ahead of the curve, FunnyShaffer! heheh. in all seriousness, though, i’m pretty happy! especially now that i get to work on something i love full-time. i think that was pretty much the shot of happiness i needed. 🙂
I completely understand. My emotions are like a rubrix cube. Very difficult to figure them out and even if I do figure them out I still have my doubts about being right or not.
One time during high school I brought a rubrix cube to school to try and tell people how my mind worked. They solved the rubrix cube for me and missed my metaphor entirely…….
Anyways, happy 500 comics! I’m glad I found this webcomic.
heh. that’s the prob, GB – even after you think you have your feelings figured out, you can’t be sure your assessment is accurate! so frustrating. sorry your metaphor wasn’t appreciated by your friends. 🙂
and thanks for the congrats – i’m glad you’re here!
I would tell you what I think about this, but I am not sure what I feel about it.
What is Bot doing outside on *gasp* fresh air?
heheh. well not being sure how you feel about it is the perfect response, Maryz. 😉
and bot’s been taking many walks over the past few months (some of which lead to fresh air!) must be because he’s been in a melancholy mood, lately.
I have the same problem, but for me I’m not sure if it’s age or Prozac that makes everything feel the same. 😐
Congrats on the 500th strip!! Woot woot!
heh. for me, it’s definitely age, Shanna. i’m not sure how much more prozac could “balance” me, but i’m afraid to find out. O_O
and, YES! 500! thanks for being here for a good portion of those strips! 😀
Congratulations on 500 strips, home slice~!
Yeah that happens to me sometimes too. We should all act like monkeys and have our emotional expressions reversed; where having a blank expression is considered happy, while smiling is a sign of aggression. Can you imagine the reactions? “Boy that guy sure is happy about getting his nose broken.”
thanks, Foxmouse! insane that it’s been 500 strips. doesn’t seem like it!
and, yes – it’s indeed funny that baring our teeth isn’t a sign of aggression! sometimes when i smile i feel like such an animal.
I kinda assumed the whole emotion thing was a teen thing…drat.
500 STRIPS OH MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~
nope! the whole “emotion thing” stays with you long after your teens, GG11! (sorry to say.) enjoy those emotions, but try and keep control over them so it’s easier later.
When someone asks how I’m doing, my first thought is always “With regards to what?” It’s been like that since I was an adolescent. I think that’s what a shrug and “fine” translates to.
yeah, responding with “fine” is usually way easier for both parties to process, E.A.. faster, too.
XD eh, having a predominately cheery disposition doesn’t hurt, even when shtufff happens.
More than emotions, it’s harder to visualize as vividly as when young… Makes me wonder how my dad does it while writing, but I can’t grip the story when I’m drawing it…
… Huh… Adulthood continues to revel in entropy… O.o|||
Do you and your dad make a comic/graphic novel together?
Nah, he’s a self published author (check out Princess of Amathar or His Robot Girlfriend for a good start, or the Steel Dragon series for a bigger read XD)
I’ve tried doing the webcomic dealie in small on deviantart and a blog, but I end up forgetting to update (even if I have material ^^d)
Just not the most dedicated of artist… Although when drawing comes it’s quite a rush XD
I’ll take a look at that now.
I’m just asking because I’m trying to put together a group of writers, artists, and editors to start an independent publishing group. Pool our resources and talents and synergize. And well, I’m always on the hunt for more of all three.
i think the only way i’ve managed to keep my sanity during adulthood is due to my mostly “cheery disposition” since childhood, JeweledRose! definitely helps to have a good attitude – once you start walking around with a dark cloud, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Also, congratz on strip number 500!
It’s always a pleasure seeing someone make it past that start up period where so many have gotten bored or uninspired or had to deal with real life matters, and you’ve gone a step further and made something awesome of your strip ^^
well, thanks for the congratz and kind words, JR! i’ve had a handful of friends who started webcomics right around the time i did, and as you mentioned – they didn’t make it past their startup period, sadly.
Not just you, Jeff. There are times I count ambiguous moodiness as a victory!
heheh. yes, “ambiguous moodiness” can be interesting to experience from time to time, Tim1701, as long as you don’t live there. 🙂
Too true. Yet, it’s all relative; generally, it beats this sort of thing: http://cloudfivecomic.com/comic/79-house-call
Well for starters, Happy 500.
That emotion thing is quite the matter.
Aaaaaand with my freetime reduced to an average low percentage (1-2% maybe—Damn me, I hate evening school soooo much) I´m probably the last one with enough time to think about such immense topics.
Nevertheless I represent the opinion that there´s nearly nothing as vague as human emotions. To understand what we´re feeling is to understand where our very own grasp of feelings come from.
Like everything we learnd it as children from our surroundings.
They are copied form the one´s that raised us and the ones we grew up with.
So probably the intense and understanding of the feelings we´re going through is based of our rolemodels as well.
Just my two Cents.
(Please excuse my english. Had´nt a propper practise since….you know the last time I slept more then 5 hours a night. -_- Damn you second way education)
woo! thanks for the happy 500, macson!
agreed: emotions are just plain strange and impossible to understand absolutely. i do think we get some of them from our role models growing up, and from friends and siblings. others we generate on our own, i suppose. but all that history just makes them even more impossible to understand!
no apologies for your english are necessary: i speak “< 5 hours a night" fluently. 😉
Oh, I know that one.
Especially when I work too much, all emotions but the strongest (mostly frustration) fade. That’s totally normal and mostly stress-related (and yes, being unemployed and having nothing real to do is one of the worst forms of stress – a local study put being unemployed right up there with having a severe illness or a death in the family).
I can recommend only one thing: leave the house, get moving. Work out, go hiking or whatever you like. It is nor enough to occupy the mind, the body needs attention, too. Getting sweaty helps wonders. For me, it’s mountain biking. Rode over 1,100 miles last year and every time I return from a ride, I feel fresh (well, not “fresh” fresh, but emotionally fresh) and all is good. Got way more energy for everything else, too, so my social contacts benefit also. 😉
i definitely hear you, Lars – i’m probably going to start up at the gym regularly again in the next week or so. JEFbot does indeed occupy my brain most of the time, but my body is left wanting, and it’s getting a little too soft for my liking. i always feel better – mentally and physically – when i’m fit, so i’m actually looking forward to it.
congrats on your 1,100+ miles last year! i’m sure your “social contacts” are happy about that.
Oh and happy, HAPPY #500. I just passed #50 with my webcomic, so wayyyyy to go there.
WOO! thanks! and congrats to your #50 as well. i remember #50 was one of the first huge milestones. 🙂
Hello wonderful artist,
I have been reading your comic for years now, and thank you for bringing me that joy for a small time a week. 🙂
I really identified with the comic today which is why this is my first comment! I also have been extremely confused with my feelings as of late. Without getting into anything heavy, I’d definitely agree you’re not alone. I think it’s really cool A) that you could add in a comic about “feels” and B) that it ended up being just what I personally needed to read today. Thank you for that as well.
So congrats for your first 500 comics, thank you for them and here’s to as many more comics as you want to write, dear sir!
awww… well, thanks for reading all these years, Rebecca! i’m happy today’s comic touched you on a personal level and inspired you to write about your own “feels.” one of the reasons i write and draw JEFbot is to communicate with readers, so i love that you related to this one in whichever way you needed to. that’s awesome.
hope all is well with you, and hope you can relate to many more over the next 500 strips and more! 🙂
Oh bot! You know just how I feels. I love CF. Tell CF I love him. c:
I’m more about not hurting people’s feeling anymore. I use to be able to yell at people without caring and now it’s like a math equation in my head weighing out the pros and cons with confronting them.
AW YEAH. THE BIG 5-0-0! I swear one day I will own your comics, WAIT FOR ME BOT, WAIT FOR MEEE.
i’ll let CF know of your love the next time i talk with him, Nat! heheh. and, yeah: i do those “math equations” all the time! and not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings is definitely a sign of getting older. things that seemed SO important – like winning arguments and getting your way – are definitely less so when adding more and more variables to the Big Equation. we all know that it adds up to 42 in the end, anyway. 🙂
and, yes: i will wait for you right here.
You just hit 500! I have my first strip on my site and was excited (and am in the process of posting more). I can only imagine what 500 feels like.
WOO for both of us, Rainey! in many ways, that first strip is the hardest to make happen. 🙂
Given the merciless children who made fun of me in elementary school, you’d figure I’d’ve buried my emotions long ago. Nevertheless, it seems that rather than becoming completely bitter and broody, I developed a rare form of empathy for a guy. When I watched “Hunger Games” in 2011, the waterworks started with “I volunteer!” and were almost full blast when Rue died. As much as I try to be stalwart and brooding like all macho men, I guess I’m just a softie. . . or an emotional train wreck; not certain which.
having empathy for people and things is awesome, Bender_Sastre. embrace it! the most sensitive people i know are also some of the coolest people i know. 🙂
Whenever I’m not sure about how I feel, I just try to remember that elation, love, depression and virtually every other emotion I’m capable are essentially chemicals in my brain, subject do my environment. Then I think about how cool it would be if everyone around me started dancing Gangnam Style and how ridiculous it would be if there were puppies everywhere, and before I know it, my brain is flooded with more dopamine than I even know what to do with!
hmmm… my brain is always creating imaginary situations out of real situations, too, Hannah! it’s kinda what JEFbot’s founded on, actually. maybe it’s a dopamine-creating mechanism?
Well first off… bipolar seems to run in my family… and yeah, my emotions are insanely annoying. -_-