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By Root 634 0

the acrid hate spew that leaks out of the Internet at any given time. I’m sure this book will generate at least a few more! I’m expecting it, so I’m kind of looking forward to it in a weird way. I bring it up not to whine like the proverbial bitch, but to say that it makes an excellent point: I AM NOT A LIFE COACH. I don’t wish to be a motivational speaker or a self-help guru. But why do you have to be a life coach to share the spoils of your experiences? I am a dude with a Long Tail of mistakes. I have gleaned some knowledge from them. I wish to share that knowledge in hopes that other humans will have at least a slightly easier time in this world. I not only enjoy the idea of having others benefit from my flailings, I feel like it’s a responsibility for me to offer them up. In short, knowledge is useless if it isn’t shared.

Now that the disclaimers have been laid out, let’s lower our emotional defense shields and talk about Nerds in a favorable and informative fashion!

PART ONE

MIND

YOU OWN YOUR MIND

You absolutely own your mind. It’s yours. This is part of the “gift of life” thing that you get in exchange for never having asked to be born. You are the proprietor of your thoughts and feelings, and you choose how you frame the many experiences that form the campus of your personality. It’s a weird and glorious moment of self-awareness the day you realize that you are the warden rather than the prisoner of your emotions. The interesting thing about our minds is that if we don’t actively seize control of them, they default to autopilot. When you don’t take an aggressive role in shaping your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, you become a helpless passenger floating through the universe like a ghost ship, merely reacting to wherever it takes you. Awesomely, YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO ALONG WITH IT.

We spend so much time distracting our seemingly helpless selves while on the ghost ship when all we need is a little bit of direction and focus to ultimately assume manual control and begin piloting the ship. Nerds are preprogrammed to excel in matters of focus because our innate mental gifts allow us to do so. Are you a passenger on a ghost ship or are you the pilot? More importantly, are you a Nerd? What is a Nerd? Has it just become a diluted buzzword, rendered meaningless and devoid of soul? Possibly. But hopefully not. I mean, if I hope for anyone to give a shit about this book, that is.

The word “Nerd” is very special to me. It’s been with me my whole life, and I see it in the work of every single one of my close friends, the community of wonderful humans who follow my ramblings online, and through the eyeholes of the masks of the many Cons I attend around the country. So how do I define this word?

Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrds!!!

—Ogre, Revenge of the Nerds

A “Nerd” is someone who homes in on a topic to an almost quantum detail, much of the time at the expense of healthy social interaction. Nerds get caught up in the minutiae because there is a tremendous and fulfilling sense of control in understanding every single detail of a thing more than any other living creature. The second important facet to a Nerd is his or her voluminous imagination and attraction to fantasy. I believe these two components of Nerds are the result of both nature AND nurture; as smarter beings, Nerds tend to obsess over mind-oriented activities and as such shy away from physical ones—like sports—and therefore suffer much social ostracizing while young. This rejection from the outside world forces them to turn inward and become more introspective and obsessive, thereby strengthening their Nerdiness.

Many times I have been told I’m not a Nerd because I don’t “look like one.” I think I kind of understand what this means, but it’s always slightly offensive to me. Like if you tell someone you’re Jewish and they say, “THAT’S funny. You don’t LOOK Jewish!” Really? Offensive much? What does that look like exactly? Oftentimes, I get the Nerd denial from members of the Nerd community, which is shocking to me because if ANY group should understand