I found out today that my brother had felt unease about his nerdy knowledge on various topics. Quite frankly, I had always admired him for said nerdiness. Whenever he was interested in a topic, he’d do what he could to learn as much as possible in a short period of time. And then, if it was something that he really enjoyed, how continued to learn about it in the years that followed, becoming ever more the genius on the topic. Possibly the best part of it to me was that these often were topics that had almost nothing to do with his work or schooling – it was purely things that interested him. Nowadays, he is still the same about it all, though he definitely has certain topics on which he could be considered an expert after so many years and hours of study and work dedicated to them.
I guess, growing up, I just didn’t know his world of friends and classmates and, eventually, colleagues, because I was so much younger than he was. I had no idea that they didn’t know about his nerdy areas in his life, too. They apparently only knew about his cool, chic, sporty side (from what I understand now). He, it seems, was afraid of being rejected for his knowledge and studies. Now, though, he has begun to embrace his nerdiness, and publicly so (think social media, etc.), and he has been discovering how much respect exactly that aspect of him; especially since he is cool, chic, and sporty, but loves knowledge and nerding out over certain things. He is discovering that he had no need to be insecure about his interests and knowledge. Plus, despite the fact that the public has been responding really well to his nerd side’s being exposed, he already knew that it doesn’t really matter what other people think of him anyway – that’s their own business, not his. What matters is what he thinks about himself. If he is happy with who he is, then there is no reason not to express that in his life. So, he started finally expressing himself, nerdiness included. Now that he has been doing that, he has also found that people are grateful to him for sharing himself and his passions with the world. Super duper win-win, I say. And I am proud of him doubly, for keeping up the nerdy knowledge, and now for sharing it with the world. 🙂
Post-a-day 2018
hannah ananas 