When I was a kid, there were no nerds. We were geeky was rather wimpy and cheesy and was called a nerd. Nerds were just in the American high school movies, and some such, we had not seen yet.
I liked Povel Ramel, played chess and was useless for handball (spent most of my time on the exchange bench together with Sven-Ake). I loved to solve crossword puzzles with grandparents and spent so much time I was at the library. I even asked staff at the library to help set out the back left the books on the shelves. When I was out walking with grandpa, I asked him constantly to ask me about something, to test my skills. I tried to learn all the members of the Swedish Academy since its inception in 1786 (has unfortunately not left this knowledge). One night in middle school when I could not sleep, I imagined that I would learn the Greek alphabet. I can actually still, but only if I rattle off very quickly. And when our school class could not stand we in fifth grade to the selection day was study day and our teacher would not let the extra teacher to let us in the classroom - then I cried rivers. An indelible memory that I have shortcuts to my brain. I had looked forward to the day since primary school.
There are of course many different kinds of geeks. According SAOL is a nerd a "simplistic and ridiculous person" or "geek". In some ways, I was certainly ridiculous. For what else can we think about a seventh grader who sings unsolicited Ernst Rolf-choruses from his bench spot on the music lesson. I had friends, of course, but was never offered to children and youth gangs inside celebrations. It made me not so much, I liked to sit and pamper myself, but of course there was a pain in it. Something that makes me still feel uncertain about a person I consider to be violent or inside. I know I do not belong there and get a little scared. It is a ridiculous reaction, especially when it turns out that precisely those where people are often just as geeky as me. I am so confident in other contexts may be a sudden bout of Middle School and pulls me back.
Single-track, I have never really been. I have been a geeky thin in so many areas that I rather be understood as broad. But I like to go in depth, at least temporarily, until I get tired. The only area that I held on to for ages is Sherlock Holmes. There is true SAOL-definition actually pretty well for me, especially at the end of high school and high school. In all school directories from high school wearing my deerstalker, that Holmes hat with a double brim. I decline to go into how much I tortured my classmates with Sherlock Holmes-knowledge. However, I managed to get Holmes in essays in most school subjects in high school. Sherlock Holmes as a chemist, Sherlock Holmes musical idols and so on.
Holmes interest led me to correspond with other like-minded people all over the world, both young and old. My correspondence was enormous, many hundreds of letters a year during the late teens. What started with me in the back of a book found the address of a Holmes Society led over the years to a wide range of close friendships.
I'm thinking a bit on what would have happened if I were young today. My social life at that time was pretty poor, it would have been different today? Quite simply, what the network had meant for me?
Being Sherlock Holmes interested in today is a breeze. It's just how many ways at any time, via the web to communicate with others who share the same penchant for star detective. And if you do not know the whole world of Holmes Society and discussion forums available, so it is enough that you google for "Sherlock Holmes" to an amazing sherlockianskt Narnia will open on the other side.
With the web we find geeky Holmes Interested each other with ease. The Swedish Society Holmes The Baskerville Hall Club of Sweden said it for many years that you probably have to be the master detective himself to find the association. It is no longer valid. You only have a few google search.
Whatever one's geeky interested in so you can find via Google and social media like-minded people. Quite inevitably build thus social networking, contacts that are often stronger than the social ties they have with their geographical location. Today I have no contact with more than a few of the people I went to school with - and unfortunately it is quite volatile contacts - but of my sherlockianska pen pals, I have now, 20-25 years later, many remain. And there are contacts that have evolved considerably over the years.
Being young and nerdy today represents a tremendous career opportunity. Through social media goes beyond the usual, local acquaintances and find instead friends that share their narrow interests. Often the result is not just talk, but equally dedicated blogs and the like. And when you have the same values, it is easy to find other ways of cooperation as you get older.
I owe Sherlock Holmes because I sit where I sit today. Holmes led me to a more general criminal literary track, with the contacts that meant. That in turn led me to the book publishers, first on a small scale, since the self-published and is now on Piratförlaget. And the way I also started writing their own books, blogging, and then more recently also try to influence the industry I work within.
Still, I mix the geeky special topics in my daily life. Turn of the century Stockholm and Swedish entertainment history will live side by side with my interests to broader topics bokbranschfrågor and social media. That's what makes me who I am. And interest from the surroundings of my geeky narrow side is often as large as for my wide side.
When I was little nerdy leave no conscious choice, it just happened. Today I choose to be nerdy.
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Wonderful text! And so true.
I tried with some pen pals, but had no patience with it. Had the internet existed when it was current had enough letters harvest have been different.
However, a nerdy, I think is an extremely useful feature to have ... If you can see it as a characteristic example of patience.
It provides a basis to go into the topics and projects in depth and perform an extremely thorough job of high quality.
What a fine text. High recognition factor where although the details vary a bit:)
Right on target! I've often thought about what the Internet had meant it existed when I was in high school.
Niklas: I too had some pen pals, especially during middle school. There was no special service that allowed school children from different places in the world could find each other and begin to correspond. For me it worked but not well, it ran quickly into the sand. It was only when I began to correspond on my Sherlock Holmes-interest that it worked. Though it was only some years later.
You're probably right in that I'm good to go in depth in the project. Unfortunately, I am also a little too quick to start new projects and often I get tired pretty quickly and find out new things. But the project is often turn interests that I embrace with great commitment.
George: Probably, many people can identify with it. Although I think I'm so alone in my geeky, it's probably a lot who have similar experiences.
Book gauge: counterfactual autobiographies are a very special genre.
Although this is the recognition factor very high, even if just Ernst Rolf-choruses was never my thing. However crossword with my grandparents, and countless hours at the city library (or Grandma and Grandpa's small library, yes, they had an entire room with only books in his 3rd). Do not be stuck with a subject like that tokmegalänge you, it has varied between pearls and computers nowadays come plaguing me enough surroundings most of hiking entitles orto ODL and love to talk to / meet others who like to lace up their sneakers and covered with a tent i.
Really like your writing. And makes me happy on my eight year old son's behalf. I think he, as snows in on something a couple years at a time, until he can be the inside out - right now chess and Star Wars - will grow up to be a wise and broad-nerd like you!
Beatrice: The reason I stuck with Holmes interest for so many years is enough for it long ago went on to be a social thing - I've got so many friends that way and them I would not give up. Plus, I got so far in the actual interest that I think - it may sound a bit exaggerated and ridiculous - that what I'm doing actually has significance for other people, though not as many.
Pia: I honestly believe that nerds have more fun. As a geek is never dependent on others to get something out of life.
Haha, how wonderful to read! I say that George and Beatrice ... a lot of recognition. Read if you feel like:)
http://glimrandeglimtar.blogspot.com/2009/11/sociala-medier.html
http://glimrandeglimtar.blogspot.com/2009/10/har-gar-jag-omkring-och-tanker-att-jag.html
Annah: And now I read your two texts - wonderful! You and I have certainly had some different tracks, but I think what unites us geek types, we nod in agreement at each other's life stories and feel that, yes, yes, so there could well have been for me too.
Hi,
Read with pleasure your contribution in the SSWC-book and thinks it put his finger on something I occasionally touched on, but not reflected upon. That is, how much easier it is today to find like-minded people. It is often heard about how much information is available on the Internet. Sure, in the Stone Age had to look up a phone book to find the restaurant's opening hours and a reference book when you wanted to know the surface of the Netherlands. Today you can find the same information via a few mouse clicks - which of course is very compact and convenient. But finding other geranium growers, fellow patients or participate in photo challenges, it was considerably more difficult before!
Tomato Salad: Perhaps it's a bit twice. I love these days to find like-minded people so easily. But I also found some satisfaction in 80 - and early 90's to just get put down some effort into finding them. The big advantage now is that I can better refine the search so that I can find just the people I fit in with.
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