All the nerds (or former nerds) out there read this by Paul Graham, nerd and tech evangelist. (No, it’s not programming gobblydygook…READ it!)
I don’t particularly like his writing style, nor his edification of the ’nerd’ as the proto-adult who misunderstands the endgame known as ‘popularity’, but his quotable quotes are amazing:
Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I’ve read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.
Very true: White trash *is* the most racist group, because if there’s no one below them, what do they have?
Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.
True also. People of uncertain social standing will NOT extend an olive branch.
But here’s the kicker:
Where I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs are deliberately designed to exclude the outside world, because it contains things that could endanger children.
As far as I can tell, the concept of the hormone-crazed teenager is coeval with suburbia. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think teenagers are driven crazy by the life they’re made to lead. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance were working dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs. Their craziness is the craziness of the idle everywhere.
Just as with an essay on 2blowhards.com, this strikes home with me: Because of the idleness and meaninglessness of adolescence, we have generation after generation of nihilists. Moreover our current baby-boom hangover causes us to CELEBRATE this period for its freedom, not decry it for its uselessness.
The thing I want to take away from it is my wish to not make my kids endure the same fate.
* * *
After the diatribe that was this morning, I actually had a pretty good day at work. I finally figured out a bug that meant changing this SQL statement:
SELECT 1
to
SELECT 1 FROM DUAL
whenever my server is talking to an Oracle database. Took me 3 hours to install Oracle 10g (640 meg download…sheesh), configure it, and test it, but sure enough, that was the problem.
And no meetings. I LOVE THAT. Just pure creativity (or, debugging, in this case).
And I’m reading Paul Graham’s collected essays entitled Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas on the Computer Age
Even moreso than Joel Spolsky, Graham is all over the place. Whereas Spolsky would temper his tech excitement with some business acumen, Graham is the Nerd Savant, making programming out to be an artistic enterprise that transcends its medium just as Michanelangelo transcends your average painting contractor in Fresno.
Honestly, I don’t know if I buy it. What I know of programming as a practical, for-pay skill comes much closer to Spolsky’s no-nonsense attitudes. Basically, I’d love to look at some of Graham’s code, but I’d like to work for Spolsky.
Still, reading both books back-to-back has been a great revelation.