second time puzzled.

This generation has grown to celebrate nerdiness. Popular media has glorified nerdiness no end. In the nineties, fed on cable tv, my idea of a nerd used to be Boris Grishenko, the evil nerd in the movie ‘golden eye’ thumbing and spinning his pen nervously while using left hand to find access codes. He has been my primary reference ever since. Many aspiring nerds, including me, used to spend hours trying to solve futile needle-in-a-haystack problems like poring over assembly code to find the instructions where zero flag should be flipped to get that app to work inside a debugger. I also learnt to play with bash shell, emacs and even some 'ed' and loved to hate user-friendly guis (but still used them when nobody was around), while going easy on the evil part. Yes there was also that character in the movie 'swordfish' but the movie or the characters sonamehow didn’t catch my imagination.

Things have changed since then. Nerds are not necessarily evil. There are benign self-loving nerds like Sheldon in bbt. There are much more benign nerds like lennard and his friends. Nerds pastimes are no longer relegated to the computer. This brings us to some questions we may ask. Can normal people be nerds? Should one aspire to be? Is it easier now to enter the ranks?

As for the last question, I think that it easier to be nerd than it is to be rocket scientist. But it is complicated. I dont think there is a set formula. Some personality types such as those with mild aspergers or a minor obsessive more easily fit the bill than others. If you are thin, bespectacled and growing a minor beard, and have shabby hair, you have made some progress but hardly enough. There are scattered data about what makes a uber nerd. But most people know a nerd when they meet one: Adam Savage for me is way up there among benign nerds. His nerdiness is infectious and we like him for that. He also shows what the very essence of being a nerd comes from his being obsessive, meticulous about his pastimes and a willingness to concentrate on some gruesome nerdy work for hours together. Biologically perhaps this has to do with a dominant right brain. But certainly, one does not need to be evil or cruel.

Some people take to superficial things such as loving themselves and being dismissive of other people, but won’t do the hard part of getting to work on their nerdy pastimes. Some spend time sharpening the pencils as opposed to doing research, upgrading the computer with latest app, learning the new trick to switch buffers in emacs, trivializing others work or being a general bully. A nerd can be excused for being him/herself only if he/she keeps the standards and quality of work high enough. Otherwise, he is just a bully who is to be ignored. How do you stand a Sheldon like character otherwise? Nerds thrive on praise by others( remember how boris flushes when natalya says, you are such a geek!) and that is earned at a price. .

As for the second question, there are social contexts where I think it is dangerous to be a nerd (even benign). Imagine being a nerd like Sheldon with queer pastimes in Afghanistan!. You would be shot at sooner or later for your remarks. That said, I guess, ones social background, position and the company one keeps should all matter in making the choice.

Nerds are not necessarily intellectuals or even wise. In fact in most cases they are plain clever with a command in an arcane subject matter which usually goes with mild to acute social maladroitness. This gets them into trouble and they often make poor choices in choosing their friends and partners and also often make poor career decisions (includes working for villains). Nerds need not be cruel but many a times we see them go to great lengths in asserting the superiority of their work while dismissing work by others as trivial ( Boris' dismissal of Natalya as second level programmer ) but one thing nerds don’t do is call themselves nerds. This is about as close to being self-effacing as they can get. They don’t want to be bracketed ever, lest they lose their uniqueness. So people who have answered a questionnaire in a website and announce to the world they are nerds are never that.

An apprentice nerd usually mimicking his idol motivates himself thinking how cool his/her work might look and nothing else but over the years the nerds learn that they cannot sustain their nerdiness unless they find an inner reservoir of strength and sustenance. They realize that that the sooner one starts relishing and performing well in ones nerdy pastime the better. The nerdiness must come from within, not by the thought of how others might see your work.

To conclude I say this: We constantly look to find things about us which are unique, and want to be believe that we are in some ways chosen ones. This often inspires us to do things out of the ordinary. Nerds entertain that delusion for long and somewhat magically keep getting better at their work and do some spectacular work. Others dismiss this as a delusion and submit to being normal human beings and are happier for that. So who do you want to be?