The Process of Re-inventing Myself: Nerds and Progress

Monday, January 19, 2009

Nerds and Progress

You know the feeling of being sucked into a good story? A really good story? Something that you’d stay up all night to finish reading? That’s what I felt like last week.

I've been learning about Mac Software and OS X, programming and the like. It’s like meeting up with a long lost friend. I used to know so much stuff about coding, programming, and how to do things in UNIX and fixing/making stuff work. It seems I am in this pattern though:

“Oh dear. I am a nerd. I think I am going back to nerd-dom. Ooo, software. Oooo, programming. Oooo, code. You will do what I want! You will obey my Authority!!”

Worse, I am a narcissistic nerd. Hence, the need to say “Look at me, me, me!!!”

Well, if you don’t like it, too bad. This is me. This is what you’ve fallen in love with. I may change over time (hence re-invention) but the core package is still the same.

I lost my passion for programming and control a long time ago, but definitely when I got sucked into the world of biomedicine circa 1996. I was focusing on the somewhat interesting human body with its complex control systems, but it was really about the technology I was more interested. I am more interested in how my blood glucose meter works and the technology behind it, than the stupid reading that comes out and what it means for my “lifestyle change”.

What’s wrong with being a nerd? Nerds are just passionate about things that most normal people are not passionate about. Electronics, systems design, web design and databases (information management), content -- technology and communication of technology... I like these things. I weave them into my stories. In a sense I am writing more science fiction than, say “chick lit”. Perhaps it is also why Google Blog people think my writing style is predominantly “Male”. So what?

I am through with caring what other people think. I just want “to feel some rhythm” and develop my passions. I know I am not alone -- there are other nerds out there too who want and need my ability to communicate their stories. So that’s what I’m seeking -- to boldly seek out these life forms…

Progress update:

new contest list for 2009 developing
decision point: focus on short story writing / publishing instead of novels
set and meet word count goals for the week: this week is 1500 words / day = 7500 words
scheduling: edit & other work in afternoons
refreshed list of specific projects to complete and start sending out again
learn new things on business side (web content)

Time flew by last week and I got good feedback on the work I sent out right away via a phone call Friday morning. That feels good. You want to keep repeating what feels good. It took a while to get here, but there’s power in the gradual.

Word count: 495

Who Am I?

You're Catch-22!
by Joseph Heller
Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of people.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

You're an Eagle!
Sharp-witted and high-flying, you seem to radiate honor and a sense of pride. You'd make a very good lawyer with your keen eye for details. When up in that rare air, however, make sure to remember to look down to keep your bearings. You never know when it might be important for you to have landed. If you're bald, you love the United States of America, but if you have hair, you feel more ambivalent about it.
Take the Animal Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Favorite Quotes

"It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write."

~ Sinclair Lewis

“That’s what building a body of work is all about: it’s about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up over time, over a lifetime, to a lasting legacy.” -- President Barack Obama

"Don't try to be a great man, just be a man. And let history make its own judgments." -- Zefram Cochrane

"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."
Sophocles

"To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle. "
William Osler

"We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life. "
William Osler

"If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing."
~ Pearl S. Buck

“I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.”
- Michel de Montaigne, French essayist (1533 - 1592)

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."
- Norman Vincent Peale, US clergyman (1898 - 1993)

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.
- Jean Kerr

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to." - Dorothy Parker

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." - George Bernard Shaw

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Nerds and Progress

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