I love videogames, Star Wars, movies, and science fiction. I can recite most of the lines to various movies; have almost the entire Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy memorized, and also like computers. I’ve been known on occasion (ok, all the time actually) to throw out movie quotes rather than use normal English.

I have a tattoo of Boba Fett's Mandalorian emblem on my left shoulder, his visage on my right, and another tattoo of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy smiley-face planet on my inner right forearm.

I am, in short, a person who is considered a “geek”.

Dictionaries define the word geek in various ways¹ but basically what it boils down to is that the term geek was used for a carnival performer in the 19th and early 20th centuries that would do wild things such as bite the heads off of chickens. In recent times the definition has evolved to mean someone who is perhaps smart or technically proficient, but decidedly single-minded and socially inept².

In society these days a geek refers someone who is passionately into stuff that is not considered “cool” by the “in” crowd or the “in” crowd simply cannot understand because it won’t help them with their taxes. All of my above mentioned traits definitely qualify me for the geek category. Many times people have said to me, “You’re such a geek.” This concept carries with it a social stigma, that of being completely unable to fit into the said “in” crowd. The “in” crowd apparently being those well-groomed and beautiful people in television commercials who drive nice cars, have nice mortgages, and have 2.3 kids and a dog. If some people from the “in” crowd read my introductory paragraphs I’m sure they would picture someone short, overweight, un-hygienic, unable to hold a normal conversation, and not invited to “in” parties. Someone who could never excel at “in” things like sports and hasn’t been with a girl, at least not a real one³.

A recent newspaper that I read (I think it was The San Francisco Guardian, I don’t remember the exact details) had a whole layout about the top ten things that make you a geek and how they damage your sex life. Among the ones that caught my attention were Star Wars, Star Trek, videogames, role-playing games, and science fiction. It described geeks in the terms mentioned in the paragraphs above.

This is an interesting phenomenon to me. I am in fact 6-foot-2, 180 pounds, also into sports, good at street hockey, get invited to parties all the time, and am about to be married. I shower everyday and though my hair occasionally stands straight up like Tom Waits I wear nice clothes and generally look presentable. So why the social stigma just because I am into certain things? Why does society put down those who like certain things, like to do certain things, and aren’t harming anyone?

I don’t know but I say screw ‘em.

Social stigmas aside, there are quite a few benefits to being a geek. The main one should be quite obvious. We’re into things. Passionately into things. Some would say that this passion for “un-real” things makes us disconnected from reality but I say reality is too crabby anyway and can take a running jump. It is our passion that makes reality easier to cope with.

Being a mid-level manager in a very high-pressure and profitable company I see lots of people around me who could benefit from being passionately into fun stuff. Take Mr Bob for example. Mr Bob comes to work the same I do everyday. Does the same type of job, has the same type of pressure. Mr Bob, however, is always grumpy and when he gets off work he told me that he just sits in front of the television until he goes to bed and then gets up and does the whole thing all over again. He’s lost his drive, his mojo, and his sense of humor but he makes money, watches football, and lives a “normal” life.

See, that would be me except that I get through the day by thinking of the geek things that I love so much. I know that when I’m done trudgeing through work I can go home and become another person in a good game, have fun in my head with a good book or movie, or whatever. When my boss is giving me flak, rather than internalize it like Mr Bob, I think of a good movie quote and I can cope. Work becomes much more fun.

Next let’s take Mr Joe. Mr Joe leads an active life outside of work. He does all sorts of interesting and dynamic things but has no sense of humor whatsoever. I was once waiting at a bus stop with Mr Joe after work and there was a queue and a long wait for the bus. Mr Joe couldn’t take it. He started to turn red about the collar and complain annoyingly. Sure, waiting for the bus after work is no fun at all. But when you can space out and picture a several-story AT-AT or a squadron of TIE fighters playing around the city well, the whole thing becomes much more enjoyable. Or you can always whistle Mad About the Boy and omit the "About the Boy" part for entertainment⁴.

When there is pressure or trauma in my life I think of the wise words of Yoda (these days also Lao Tzu but Yoda is usually first) and I am calm.

In addition, living in a disgusting, dilapidated, junky-infested part of a dirty and smelly city is slightly more bearable when I picture it all as a scene from Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

In short, what being a geek looses in terms of being looked down upon by the “in” crowd it more than makes up for in spicing up the routine drudgery of daily life.

So Live Long and Prosper, May the Force be With You, and I’ll see you at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.