the world has turned and left me here

the opportunity costs of geekery

But on the other hand, I've been geeking out to a degree which, up until just now, was depressing me immensely, as it usually does. Extremes make fertile soil for sadness. Sadness grows there like a voracious crop of mushrooms. I suppose a realization of mounting opportunity costs has something to do with this sadness? No one's immune to it, unless by chance you're blessed with obliviousness as well, in which case your extremes continue without check, and people call you a "genius." Or a head case.

You see there's this idea that one should have a social life, be human blah blah blah. Well for the past few months I kind of said screw it to all that. I just geeked out. When I stopped geeking for a moment and would take stock of the situation, I would be overcome by regret. The price I paid would be apparent. This has become a familiar pattern in my life, and I have developed all these weird ways of coping with the regrets / avoiding payment.

Just now though, I really did say screw it, I'm a geek again. All these years of trying to be something other than awkward...learning how to interact comfortably with other people, even trying on the varied masks of extroversion...never thought I'd do that...I was the little kid with the big brown glasses that always got broken, who in fact broke them one time by tripping and falling on his own face. I was the kid in your 4th grade class who you wanted to smack because he raised his hand after every question. My mom made my shorts. They were way too colorful. All this shit may sound cool now but it sucked at the time when it really mattered. I wrote computer games for myself and read science fiction during the summer. I was the kid who didn't get interested in girls until one got interested in me in high school, it was just too unthinkable at the time. I didn't ask out a girl until college. I didn't drink until I was (almost) 21.

By about that point I must have gotten tired of the...disrespect. I tried to "fix" myself. I'm still trying to "fix" myself. Sometimes I manage to fit in well enough that you can't tell, When someone I've met doesn't suspect me of geekiness, I find myself extremely flattered. Imagine it: pleased that I've managed to conceal my true self! Pleased by my own act of falseness. Amazing.

I guess it finally hit me. I'm a geek, I spend immense amounts of time solving problems that to most people seem either totally pointless or way too detailed to undertake, and I *love it*. There's nothing really to be ashamed of there. So I should start enjoying it for pete's sake. It's the only thing I consistently enjoy.

However, because I've been trying so hard to avoid looking like a geek, I've pretty much broken ties with the geek community over the last 5 years. Didn't want to be seen with those people...guilty by implication...you know. But along with this unfortunately came an increasing tendency to regard myself as something extra extra special, especially since done my best to surround myself with people that are maximally different. Then when random geeks would wander into my little geek-free bubble my specialness would feel shattered. Sometimes they were clearly geekier than me..."that's not possible," I'd say, and try to forget them.

But it is possible, and in fact quite natural, because I've neglected my geeky pursuits more and more as I learned to fit in. Now I'm behind the curve. Sure, I can still sit down and write you a perl script to do just about anything, but

• can I build things from hackaday.com?
• do I understand mesh routing?
• have I learned a new language recently?
• have I ever tried obfuscated code contests?
• have I contributed anything to wikipedia?
• when did I last write anything in assembly?
• have I crafted an exploit?
• have I ever even used someone else's exploit?
• do I know what's going on with my favorite OSes between major releases?
• can I debug a kernel?
• can I write a new kernel device driver?
• what about writing that roguelike I'm always talking about?

No! It's pathetic! What the hell was I thinking? I want to do all this stuff and I've already wasted 5 years not doing any of it. Meanwhile the geeks everywhere I've been conveniently ignoring have passed me by, so that my smug claim to the title now defames their truly legitimate one.