Christ. Remind me never to read your posts before finishing my coffee. You started a spiderwebbing thought that STILL hasn't run itself through yet, and i've been sitting here for a good 5 minutes....
The whole growing up thing.... I have a personal little thought sitting in the back of my head (spawned from the bit where I read every piece of celtic & northern european mythology/archaeology I could lay hands on) That the Crazy ones - the priests & druids, the old prophet living in the forest who threw half eaten apples at your head, the blissed out chick spouting divine riddles while sitting on a volcanic fume-vent... the craftsmen who thought, I wonder what'll happen if I mix this tin... with this copper... Oh Shit! and made bronze weapons for centuries of Agean RTS games... that everyone in the village thought was ODD but they made the best dyes/herbal remedies/pottery whatever. Or they sat around waving paper covered in math at each other, trying to prove the earth was flat. round. Triangular, except on opposite tuesdays when it popped out for a quick Ouzo at the local greek bar.
Its occured to me that the "freaks & geeks" fall into this little group WAAAAY too easily. Because when you take a look around, where have these people gone? Where are the apple-chucking loonies telling you the neighboring clan is coming to steal your cattle next week? The craftspeoples doing things they don't know they can't do & discovering that you really CAN do that & make it work?
Not everyone who starts out wired this way finishes up this way. (good thing, too, too many of 'em & we start running out of apples.) And, on top of that, the people who do retain this...... divine insanity? (fishing for a term here, help me out) don't always find a place for themselves. Lots hiding in Academia, lots becoming "starving artists", lots going into stealth mode where they hide their geekyness until you've proven safe. (lots working night shift.)
I'm guessing you were lucky enough to have a crowd of fellow geeks all through high school. But, hey. The "Normal" kids who were the ones I ran with all ended up making odd, 180-degree choices once they were out of the purgatory known as the public school system... Ended up in places they never considered when they were doing the considering. I'm also guessing some of them (especially among the Jehovah's Witness contingent) strayed REALLY REALLY far in their travels... But that's okay. I spend my time watching for the geeks & freaks hiding in the woodwork - which, its always fun to look at someone, and ask, "Gamer?"
And be right. Really awesome... almost makes up for the rest of the crap.
This spiralling web of little thoughts brought to you by the letter "C", for coffee.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-08-17 10:37 pm (UTC)The whole growing up thing.... I have a personal little thought sitting in the back of my head (spawned from the bit where I read every piece of celtic & northern european mythology/archaeology I could lay hands on) That the Crazy ones - the priests & druids, the old prophet living in the forest who threw half eaten apples at your head, the blissed out chick spouting divine riddles while sitting on a volcanic fume-vent... the craftsmen who thought, I wonder what'll happen if I mix this tin... with this copper... Oh Shit! and made bronze weapons for centuries of Agean RTS games... that everyone in the village thought was ODD but they made the best dyes/herbal remedies/pottery whatever. Or they sat around waving paper covered in math at each other, trying to prove the earth was flat. round. Triangular, except on opposite tuesdays when it popped out for a quick Ouzo at the local greek bar.
Its occured to me that the "freaks & geeks" fall into this little group WAAAAY too easily. Because when you take a look around, where have these people gone? Where are the apple-chucking loonies telling you the neighboring clan is coming to steal your cattle next week? The craftspeoples doing things they don't know they can't do & discovering that you really CAN do that & make it work?
Not everyone who starts out wired this way finishes up this way. (good thing, too, too many of 'em & we start running out of apples.) And, on top of that, the people who do retain this...... divine insanity? (fishing for a term here, help me out) don't always find a place for themselves. Lots hiding in Academia, lots becoming "starving artists", lots going into stealth mode where they hide their geekyness until you've proven safe. (lots working night shift.)
I'm guessing you were lucky enough to have a crowd of fellow geeks all through high school. But, hey. The "Normal" kids who were the ones I ran with all ended up making odd, 180-degree choices once they were out of the purgatory known as the public school system... Ended up in places they never considered when they were doing the considering. I'm also guessing some of them (especially among the Jehovah's Witness contingent) strayed REALLY REALLY far in their travels... But that's okay. I spend my time watching for the geeks & freaks hiding in the woodwork - which, its always fun to look at someone, and ask, "Gamer?"
And be right. Really awesome... almost makes up for the rest of the crap.
This spiralling web of little thoughts brought to you by the letter "C", for coffee.