Embracing the freakdom

As any pre-teen would do, I taught myself html, javascript, muddled around with Adobe Photoshop, and gradually developed a pseudo-website that I could actually be proud of. What was the subject of the website, you ask? Star Wars - episodes 4, 5, and 6 (not 1, 2, and 3 - as a true star wars fan I refuse to acknowledge the prequels).

Admittedly it isn't the best idea to publish non-anonymously that my youth consisted of building websites on films about spaceships and inarticulate hairy monsters (i.e Chewbacca) but I hope in time it will be appreciated for its endearing idiosyncrasy?

Admittedly it isn't the best idea to publish non-anonymously that my youth consisted of building websites on films about spaceships and inarticulate hairy monsters.

I am fully aware of the social perception of the typical Star Wars geek - the one who says 'may the force be with you' instead of 'goodbye', composes intricate techniques to build her own lightsaber out of toilet roll and cardboard, chastises her friends for calling 'Master Yoda' simply 'Yoda', and knows that Mark Hamill broke his nose in a car accident between the filming of episodes 4 and 5.

I am not that geek (or at least not since 2001), yet I can still appreciate the films for their beautiful portrayal of the epic good vs. evil hero's tale and for creating an intricate study of human nature within a construct of science fiction, drama, romance, and action (and let's face it, Luke Skywalker was a hottie).

However, this blog is not about the many (many) positives of the original Star Wars trilogy, it is about the varied reaction that people have when I tell them this shady little bit of my past. There are those who slide their chairs away uncomfortably, others who pat my shoulder sympathetically, and still others who burst liberally into similarly 'nerdy' stories about their youth, ranging from writing Harry Potter fanfiction to creating personal websites to obsessions with Neopets or Pokemon. I've reached the point where I love to tell my friends about my geeky past, if only to expose them to this 'unique' facet of my personality and to learn about their inner geekiness too.

I've been told I'm pretty cool.

Anuradha's been told she's pretty cool. Can you tell why?

And I'll say this while I indulge in my dose of Mugglenet and my photoshop and my javascript and my facebook, because that isn't all of who I am, only part of it. Having lived in a total of 7 different countries and attended a million different schools, I've observed at every stage what was deemed 'too cool for school'. When I was in Bangkok in years 8 and 9, the cool kids were the cheerleaders and the jocks. In the US through years 10 and 11, the cool kids were the stoners. In Belgium through years 12 and 13, the cool kids were the smart ones.

What is 'cool' then?

Is the definition such that it changes at every stage of one's life, in every different environment? Is it still the old sex, drugs, rock and roll rebellious liberation of the past? Or has it evolved itself into this amorphous subjective state where coolness is ultimately self-confidence, exists somewhere between the stereotypical 'cool kid' and 'the nerd', and insists on an all-permeating acceptance of one's own potential 'geekiness'?

At the risk of jumping into some Mean Girls-esque finale tear-jerking philosophy, what I'm getting at is that everyone will be cool somewhere and be a loser somewhere else.

At the risk of jumping into some Mean Girls-esque finale tear-jerking philosophy, what I'm getting at is that everyone will be cool somewhere and be a loser somewhere else. The labels that we allow to define us only capture a singular facet of our personality, yet we can so often slip and allow them to decide how we feel about all of ourselves.

At some point in our lives every one of us is the cool kid, and every one of us is the loser. In fact, most of the time we are both at once, encompassing several elements of both ends of the imaginary spectrum. Instead of attempting to define and compartmentalize the innumerable contradictions that flourish within every one of us, we should just get over it and have fun with the massive potential that they give us. I'm going to leave this with a quote by Neil Gaiman from his book The Sandman: "Everyone has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world, hundreds of them. Thousands maybe".

Now I'm off to listen to my Harry Potter podcasts and Star Wars soundtracks as I iron my Princess Leia costume...

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