Pillar
Pillar
[At the top of the panel is a black frame with the following text:] This one is mostly by my little brother, Doug.
[A Cueball-like guy stands on a the top of a tall pole and talks to his Cueball-like friend on the ground. The drawing is repeated three time in the same panel, once for each comment by the two guys.] Pole-guy: The sky is so blue, and all the leaves are green. Friend: Haven't you ever wondered if we really see the same colors as everyone else? It's all perception.
Pole-guy: Well, you might as well call into question all of human experience. Who really knows what world someone else sees? Friend: Yeah, I guess.
Pole-guy: Anyway, can you help me down from this pole? Friend: What pole?
"Oops, I totally forgot to update yesterday afternoon. Well, I haven't slept, so I say it's still Friday. It's been a weird couple days and I was just thinking it was the weekend. Anyway, the first version of this strip was drawn by me and then written by Doug. I redrew/wrote it and now you are reading it! Cool, huh? Also, all the barrel strips are now here for easy linkage to people you think might like them." The link (now here above directing to a webarchive) used to direct to a collection of all six The Boy and his Barrel comics. It seems Randall had a long Friday back then. So long that he forgot to post this Friday comic before midnight. And although he still had not slept when he posted it, the time-stamp reads 7:55 AM on Saturday. This thus became the first comic to be released on a Saturday. This also happened to him the next Friday/Saturday. And then two times more before he closed LiveJournal. Since then it has not happened.

Two Cueball -like guys ponder the unanswerable philosophical question of whether all people observe the universe the same, or whether, for example, what one person sees as "red" might be what another see as "green". They muse that no one really knows how anyone else sees the world.
The misdirection and punchline of the comic come when the pole-guy asks if his friend can help him down from this pole where he's been standing for the entire comic. The friend's reply indicates that he does not see a pole, proving that one person can observe the world differently than another, in this case, in a far more extreme and unexpected way than color differences.
Another interpretation of the punchline is that the friend doesn't like pole-guy's idea of questioning all of human existence and mocks that philosophy by pretending not to see that he is standing on a pole.
The concept of a philosopher on a pole is likely a reference to many " stylites " or "pillar-saints" of the late antiquity period, perhaps the first and most famous them being Simeon Stylites .
Unlike most other xkcd comics, the "panels" of this comic are not divided and are drawn within a single frame.
As noted at the title text, this comic is based on a comic drawn by Randall 's brother Doug, although Randall apparently redrew and rewrote it.
[At the top of the panel is a black frame with the following text:] This one is mostly by my little brother, Doug.
[A Cueball-like guy stands on a the top of a tall pole and talks to his Cueball-like friend on the ground. The drawing is repeated three time in the same panel, once for each comment by the two guys.] Pole-guy: The sky is so blue, and all the leaves are green. Friend: Haven't you ever wondered if we really see the same colors as everyone else? It's all perception.
Pole-guy: Well, you might as well call into question all of human experience. Who really knows what world someone else sees? Friend: Yeah, I guess.
Pole-guy: Anyway, can you help me down from this pole? Friend: What pole?
"Oops, I totally forgot to update yesterday afternoon. Well, I haven't slept, so I say it's still Friday. It's been a weird couple days and I was just thinking it was the weekend. Anyway, the first version of this strip was drawn by me and then written by Doug. I redrew/wrote it and now you are reading it! Cool, huh? Also, all the barrel strips are now here for easy linkage to people you think might like them." The link (now here above directing to a webarchive) used to direct to a collection of all six The Boy and his Barrel comics. It seems Randall had a long Friday back then. So long that he forgot to post this Friday comic before midnight. And although he still had not slept when he posted it, the time-stamp reads 7:55 AM on Saturday. This thus became the first comic to be released on a Saturday. This also happened to him the next Friday/Saturday. And then two times more before he closed LiveJournal. Since then it has not happened.
