Why I consider myself a geek.

So, running on from my previous post Focus, I’ve taken up a slightly more focused blogging idea for the month of April, #30DaysOfGeek, a bunch of questions about, well, geeky stuff.

So, here goes. I’m going to try to hit the same word totals I was aiming for last month with an unfocused blogging idea for these ones; well, not so much word totals as being a little bit above bite-sized, and a little below a full five course meal; you know, somewhere in that vague range.

So, why am I a geek? It’s such a ridiculously open-ended question. I think the core of being a geek is that a person is likely to do depth-first searching for an answer. As in, I’m going to, as my default question to anything, not ask “What?” but ask “How?” or “Why?”; and there’s going to be drilling down for many layers until there is a commonality with something I already understand.

Well, that’s a bit pithy; to reduce the entire mindset down to a simple algorithm; but that’s just it. Being a “geek” is on some level being a mechanist, thinking that everything can be partitioned down into smaller subsections that can be understood. Of course, eventually you hit a wall doing that; and that’s where obsession comes into it. Let’s introduce another word for geek – otaku. Now, in western culture this a Japanese loanword means someone who is obsessive about Japanese culture, and is used derogatorily, even by fellow geeks. But I think it cuts to the other core of being a geek, the ying to the yang of trying to understand everything; there’s a level of obsession and dedication that becomes a tunnel vision so sanity can remain while continuing to divine and divide a topic until reaching that state of zen expertise.

So, yeah, being a geek is a mindset. It’s the ability to put on horse blinders and become totally dedicated to some obscure topic, and have strong feelings on them. It’s not about the technology, it’s about the shiny, it’s about understanding why and how of something over and above the who and what.

I know what I’m describing is something akin to being on the Autistic scale, but that’s really it; being a geek is being a functional person who can at a whim drop functionality to expand the ability to understand a desired topic. It’s about tinkering and playing around with something new, because you’ve learnt how to learn by mucking around with stuff. It’s about becoming really excited because you’ve implemented something in some obscure way, or even in a common way, but the excitement is because you did it rather than someone else, therefore you show that you understand it.

So, I consider myself a geek because I think that that is the worldview a “geek” holds. And I know that other people may disagree with me; but they better be ready to answer all the “Whys?” their rebuttal will inevitably generate.

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