Comparison
Comparison#
One of our kids’ babysitters used to say: “comparison is the thief of joy.” I loved that. It stuck with me because it names something that’s simultaneously obvious and hard to stop doing.
This piece puts that idea into your hands — literally.
View fullscreen — drag the points on the center radar chart
The Idea#
Three panels. On the left, someone struggling — their abstract form is sparse and dim, their radar chart barely filled. On the right, someone thriving — vibrant rings, strong glow, everything cranked up. In the middle: you.
You get six dials. Success, Connection, Health, Purpose, Security, Joy. Drag any point on the center radar chart to set your value from zero to ten. The abstract form above responds in real time — larger values mean brighter, wider orbital rings; higher averages add floating particles and a stronger core glow.
And at the bottom, nearly invisible at first: the quote. The more you interact with the dials — the more you compare — the clearer it becomes.
The Dials#
I chose six axes that blend external measures with internal ones:
- Success and Security are the external axes — career achievement, financial stability. The things that show up on a résumé or a balance sheet.
- Connection and Health straddle the line — they’re partly about circumstances, partly about choices and inner state.
- Purpose and Joy are the internal axes — they can’t be measured from outside and they don’t depend on comparison at all.
The mix is intentional. When you drag Success to 10, your form looks impressive. When you drag Joy to 10, it looks just as impressive. The visual system doesn’t know the difference. But you might notice that dragging Joy feels different from dragging Success — one is something you feel, the other is something you perform.
The Three Forms#
The abstract 3D visuals use six orbital ellipses — one per axis — rotating at different speeds and tilts, z-sorted for depth. Each ring’s size, brightness, and color intensity maps to its axis value. The struggling form has small, faint rings and a barely visible core. The thriving form blazes with overlapping rings, secondary halos, and floating particles.
These forms aren’t portraits. They’re not even metaphors for people. They’re what self-assessment looks like when you try to make it visible — the absurdity of reducing a life to six numbers on a hexagonal chart.
The Quote#
“Comparison is the thief of joy” starts at about 7% opacity. You can see it if you look, but just barely. Each time you adjust a dial, it gets a little clearer. After sustained interaction it reaches about 55% — present and readable but never shouting.
The mechanic is the message: the act of adjusting your dials IS comparison. You’re measuring yourself against the other two panels whether you intend to or not. The piece doesn’t punish you for it. It just makes you aware.
In the Series#
This is the first interactive piece in the series and the first one without a timed animation cycle. The previous pieces — Inner Landscape, Projecting, Immolation of Emotion, Roulette of Emotion, Enough — are all contemplative experiences you watch unfold. Comparison asks you to participate, and that participation is the point.