Twice this week I've come across this term, and neither time has it been used appropriately.
When this term was used, it was not referring to a person's social skills or to his/her academic pursuits. It was referring to his/her interests.
One person thoroughly enjoys comic books, anime, etc. She goes to conventions, wears black most of the time, and thinks its cool when she wears eyeliner like that makes her eyes look like Cleopatra. The first time I met her, she was wearing a belt with a classic Nintendo controller as the buckle. Clearly, she's not your "all American girl." But she has friends, is very polite, and even has a boyfriend that she's been serious with for some time. As to her academic pursuits, she is intelligent, but she's not the type to stick her nose in a textbook for hours on end.
The other person has a family that enjoys hunting, fishing, camping, and just being outside in general. She, on the other hand, enjoys cell phones, laptop computers, and playing a Legend of Zelda game in the air conditioning. Her family has had a sit-down with her to express their concerns that she's not "outside" enough. They also don't like the fact that most of her friends are "theater" people. But once again, she's not socially inept, and while she is intelligent, I don't see her studying at every free moment she has.
So both of these girls were called nerds by those who seem to "fit the mold" a little bit better, but neither one really fit the definition of nerd. These girls, like so many other people, simply have a set of interests that don't fit their surroundings.
I thought that as a society we had gotten past condemning a person to being a social outcast because his/her interests are different, but apparently we haven't. So, to those of you who enjoy looking down your nose at these "nerds" or "geeks" or whatever else you want to call them, consider this:
The phone/laptop/computer you're using to read this? It was made by us. You see, years ago, an entire generation of people introduced their children to Star Trek. And they loved the idea of it so much, that they sought to make the imaginations of Gene Roddenberry a reality. So computers got smaller, cell phones got smarter, and now your social media umbilical cord that you can't set down for two seconds exists. Yeah, we "nerds," we "geeks," we did that for you.
The submarines that go through our oceans and keep us safe? We did that. You see, somewhere in history someone read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. And they thought the idea of a ship that could travel underwater was cool, so they researched and worked until they figured out how it worked. Now, our borders are protected by something out of a sci-fi novel. Yeah, we did that, too.
These are just two of the many examples of services we provide because we think that science fiction could one day be science fact. But, for me, the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the real reason you shouldn't look down on the outcasts of society:
Guess who Jesus Christ hung out with? The outcasts, the weird ones, the people that everybody else scorned. And guess who Jesus Christ eventually became? An outcast, a weird one, one that everybody else scorned. In fact, the only person in the New Testament who "conformed to the norm," which in that day was the Pharisees, ended up hanging himself.
So before you get too proud of yourself for being just like everybody else, make sure that it really is a good thing. Often times going with the flow just means you're heading to the same death trap as everyone else. And the next time you feel tempted to call someone a "nerd" or a "geek," remember that without them you would still be chiseling crude pictures on cave walls to pass the time (assuming you aren't still doing that now).
Okay....rant over. I'm done.
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