In this comic strip, we see fearless Calvin refusing to accept the lesson his teacher is trying to impart. Actually the lesson has not even started yet – as the blank black board suggests – when Calvin butts in to express his disinterest. Mr. Wormwood must have felt a little kinder that day to allow the little tyke to spend the whole day in the playground. I can only imagine how Calvin must have felt when Ms. Wormwood just let him off without any question or the usual scolding. “I can do whatever I want,” Calvin must have thought while using school hours on the swing.

On a bigger scale, this comic strip reminds me of how we spurn the teaching of our parents or of God. We do have the freedom to disobey, heck we even have the option not to care, but we do not have the liberty to choose the consequences of our decisions. Being defiant or indifferent may appear independent or chivalrous, but its retribution is catastrophic. We must learn to accept the age-old lesson our parents and God himself is trying to inject in our noggin: Everything in life has borders. The sky has the mesosphere and troposphere to protect the earth from the sun’s radiation. Engineers have blueprints or manuals as guides to keep their project from collapsing. And we human beings have a set of moral standards to follow that will keep us from earthly and eternal trouble.

Calvin may have found it fun to reject his teacher’s lessons, but if he continuously insists his wants in class, I don’t think the rest of his life will be as fun. In life, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.