Hey, I’m a geek!

Welcome back.  First of all, let’s talk about a concept.  Geek in my country, specially in the city I live, is an adjective used to describe someone who is not as smart (genius) as a nerd, who has some knowledge hunger, a quiet social life and one ore more not so common hobbies.  Geeks usually have accumulated some knowledge that seems useless or not relevant in most situations.  Geeks can talk about a lot of themes that range from quantum physics to cartoon characters at any time without making them feel out of place.  The usual image of a geek is that of a nerd, the terms, in fact, usually are used as synonyms but they have, as we have seen, certain differences.

A few days ago I spoke with a friend of mine and I commented about how good I did in my job effectiveness and efficiency evaluation.  The answer came almost instantly, without hesitation she told me: What a geek you are!  Considering the time of our friendship, her sweet tone of voice, the laugh and some other details, I was just flattered.  Nevertheless, later that afternoon, thinking about that moment I asked myself why would someone take such a phrase as an offense.

The answer was rather simpler, but complex at the same time.  Society tend to hate what is unknown to it.  When something steps out of the common parameters it falls automatically in one of two historically asocial groups:  those who are crazy (and no money at all) or those who are eccentric (and a lot of money).

Since we’re kids, we split school buddies in those cool kids and those who are not so cool.  Between this last group there’s a certain subset of those who don’t pay too much attention to how they look and instead they get more attracted to what they can learn…  These are the geeks.

Now, considering that Information is power and the humanity itself is going towards an information-based society, I just don’t get how can anyone think that being a geek can be something bad.

Everyday a learn something, I like to play computer games, console games, arcades and almost any game that can be played without lesions.  I love some more physical games too, like friendly-wrestling, football soccer, rugby and some other stuff.  I like some TV series, I love cartoons and I know facts totally alien to common sense as for example that the Heidi’s pet bird is called “Pichi” (that’s in Spanish) and that the original Match 5 (from Speed Racer) had 7 buttons in the flywheel.  I can also tell coherent comments around conversations that last for hours (with my geek friends xD) about themes so different as the death, the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider is sabotaging its own experiment from the future after have been shoot once, generating a shockwave through space and time that is distorting continuity based on the believe that the result of such experiment would be so aberrant for nature that the universe itself doesn’t want it to happen.  We have talked about quantum computers coming on and Role play games… I’m a big fan of Drizzt Do’Urden, by the way.

With all of this in my mind, I just could say to myself:
Thanks, God! What a geek I am!

These is just something to think about for those who felt out of place at some point of their lives, those who feel out of place today and those who are afraid to answer without hesitation questions as which animal got several heads, lion body and reptilian tail and has also wings? Easy… Is a Chimera.  Same thing for answering Perseus! when someone asks who killed Medusa.

Ladies and Gentlemen… For those of you who felt identified… be welcome and don’t hesitate to answer any question…  The best you got is what you know and the best you can do is to share your knowledge.

Words of Wisdom:

Knowledge doesn’t occupy room

Anonymous until someone yells it false