If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles.

Larson’s quip uses comic exaggeration to poke at how people define “important things.” Fishing—often framed as leisure, escape, or even avoidance—stands in for the many hobbies and distractions that can absorb time and attention. The joke implies that if everyone truly focused on life’s essentials (work with purpose, relationships, moral duties, self-improvement), far fewer would be out fishing; the sudden “shortage” of fishing poles is the punchline that reveals how widespread such diversion really is. At the same time, the line can be read as gently skeptical of moralizing: what counts as “important” is contested, and the popularity of fishing suggests many people treat rest and recreation as essential in their own right.