Simon Brunning pointed me to this essay by Paul Graham “Why Nerds are Unpopular.” There were a lot of passages that seemed familiar but this one particularly struck home:
Because I didn’t fit into this world, I thought that something must be wrong with me. I didn’t realize that the reason we nerds didn’t fit in was that we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others.
We were a bit like an adult would be if he were thrust back into middle school. He wouldn’t know the right clothes to wear, the right music to like, the right slang to use. He’d seem to the kids a complete alien. The thing is, he’d know enough not to care what they thought. We had no such confidence.
A lot of people seem to think it’s good for smart kids to be thrown together with “normal” kids at this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some cases the reason the nerds don’t fit in actually is that everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the audience at a “pep rally” at my high school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an opposing player into the audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal ritual.
I can relate to this a lot and from a very early age. One of my favorite early teachers in third grade was Mrs. Schline. She, my friend Joe, and I used to spend recess periods walking around the playground talking about current events in the world. In fifth grade I read Watership Down and remember the surprise my teacher expressed when I told her what I was reading. At parties with my parents I spent most of the time talking to the adults instead of playing with the other children.
Throughout junior high and high school I lived most of my life inside of books. I would carry three or four of my own books from class to class in addition to the books that were assigned. When I look back on the events of that time I can remember the books I was reading more than I can remember the actual events or people I was interacting with. I know others must have had difficulty in that world but to me the escape mechanism of books was so good that everything from that time seems hidden behind a fog of intellect. Fifteen years later I still measure my life by books instead of by people, social events and relationships go by in a fog.
Graham continues:
I lost more than books. I mistrusted words like “character” and “integrity” because they had been so debased by adults. As they were used then, these words all seemed to mean the same thing: obedience. The kids who got praised for these qualities tended to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worse facile schmoozers. If that was what character and integrity were, I wanted no part of them.
The word I most misunderstood was “tact.” As used by adults, it seemed to mean keeping your mouth shut. Based on this I made up an etymology for it. I assumed it was derived from the same root as “tacit” and “taciturn,” and that it literally meant being quiet. I vowed that I would never be tactful; they were never going to shut me up. In fact, it’s derived from the same root as “tactile,” and what it means is to have a deft touch. Tactful is the opposite of clumsy. I don’t think I learned this until college.
That wasn’t the worst trick high school played on me, though. Since everyone in my school seemed to view college as a form of job training, I decided to major in the most impractical subject I could imagine: philosophy.
Graham criticizes the current American education system pretty harshly and I think a lot of it is deserved. Education still is a holding pattern for most kids, without a challenge or a real practical purpose.
