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I believe that everyone, without exception, is born with the ability to perceive things outside of the realm of the ‘5 senses’ that we all grew up learning of. I believe that human beings were designed as receptors for information that we have yet to understand.
Over time, during our childhood development, one of two things happens to most people. The information received is miscomprehended and discounted as ‘junk’ by the perceiver; they therefore learn to deny themselves the perception. They fail to understand what their own mind is telling them, and in effect, learn to distrust themselves.
The other option is an attempt to adhere to normalcy. From the time we were small children, we have been taught that ESP does not exist. As far as we have been told, there is no such thing as a true psychic or oracle; anyone claiming to be so is a charlatan. We have been brainwashed into trying to fit into society’s standard of the truth, and never learn to hone the gifts that we have.
When I talk of ESP, or extra sensory perception, I am not speaking of crystal balls, palm readings, or tarot cards. You cannot teach someone to sense something that they were never designed to sense any more than you can teach a blind man to see. ESP shows itself in bits and pieces, not necessarily the flashes of clairvoyance that we have been accustom to seeing on our favorite TV shows.
If you have ever had a moment of instinctual discomfort that threw you off guard you might know what I mean. Let me explain.
As long as I can remember, I have had a seemingly randomly occurring feeling of distress. There is nothing in particular that triggers these feelings in me, no words, and no events. It can only be described as ‘bad vibes’, and places just one thought into my head… “Get Out.”
This flight response is something I consider to be extra sensory, not cause by what I see or hear but something that I feel. Something I cannot describe. At first, I discounted the feelings as irrational like most people would, that is, until I started to see things happening around me after I was feeling this way. The sensation has kept my friends and myself out of trouble, and has brought us trouble when we have denied it.
There was one instance in college when I was discounted as ‘just being paranoid’. I had just walked out of my friend’s apartment building on our way to a party with him and his girlfriend when a feeling of malaise hit me like a diesel train.
“You look like something’s bothering you Jake, what’s up?”
“I just got really bad vibes, maybe I should go home…”
“Don’t worry about it dude, just try to relax and stop being paranoid…”
Imagine my surprise when 20 minutes later when his girlfriend and I watched him being handcuffed and placed into the back of a squad car. That was the last time I ever felt weird for feeling that way, since then, it has kept me out of a lot of trouble.
Four times at college parties, with a ton of underage kids, I had this feeling sneak up on me. Four times, I left the events, with our without my friends. Four times, I drove past the parties as I was leaving to find 3-4 police cruisers in the driveway or the parking lot.
There was one specific instance when I was having a rather lighthearted conversation with a friend of mine, laughing and joking around. The flight response was triggered and a palpable unease set in.
“What’s wrong Jake?
“ I don’t know, I just got really bad vibes.”
No more than two minutes later, another friend of mine walks over, leans in, and whispers in my ear.
“We need to get out of here, RIGHT NOW…”
“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
“In the car, dude…”
I jump in the car and start driving, not knowing where or why I am going, just that I am.
“Can you explain what the problem is NOW?”
“Dude, they’re making crack in the kitchen!”
Sitting at a bar once, it hit me like lightning. I HAD to leave; my brain gave me no choice. The way my friend described it, it was like a scene from ‘Roadhouse’. About a minute after I left, people starting swinging pool cues, beer bottles, and bar stools at each other. The cops showed up only a few minutes later after some of the patrons subdued and held down the ones who started the brawl.
Call it ESP, call it intuition, or a subconscious ability to see things as they are going wrong. I believe that everyone has inherent abilities that we deny.
You know what they say about your first instinct.
Ubergeek: n., /oo´ber·geek/
An Overgeek. A geek who is either extremely geeky, or highly admired by geeks with similar interests. It is sometimes used as a humorous spoof of the German word "ubermensch" (a person with great powers or abilities).
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ubergeek
I’ll admit it, I have no problem being a geek. In fact, if you ever see me in Staples, OfficeMax or Fry’s and call me a geek, I will probably smile and thank you. You see, in computer circles, there is no greater title, no greater badge, no greater position than ubergeek.
We wear lanyards for companies or organizations that we got at CES, Comdex, DefCon, or QuakeCon. We drink coffee and Mt. Dew almost exclusively. We walk around wearing t-shirts that no one understands except us, and we find them friggin’ hilarious! Our inside jokes make no sense to anyone who isn’t in the know. We turn into giddy kids when we learn something new about scripting. We are the people that make the world based on electrons function.
But that’s just a small sample.
The truth is that everyone is a geek in there own right. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The sooner you admit it, the better off you are. Everyone who has a passion that they delve into full bore, to the point where they have become a near expert on the subject is a geek.
Anyone who can recite the list of the Oscar winners for best supporting actor is a movie geek. If you remember all the calculations involved in sabermetrics, you are most definitely a baseball geek. If you have all ten seasons of ‘Friends’ on DVD AND the ‘Friends’ board game, you are a TV geek.
Take myself for example. I have always had a (at times unhealthy) love of military aircraft. Until I learned that my eyesight wouldn’t get me near a plane, all I ever wanted to be was a fighter pilot. There is something almost spiritual about being strapped into the nose of a machine that can surpass 1400 mph. I have never had the chance to fly in a fighter jet, but I have sat in a cockpit, and even at 0 mph, I could feel an adrenaline rush.
You know you are a geek when you turn to your brother in a movie and say this…
‘Man, they would NEVER use that type of missile on an apache helicopter!’
‘You idiot, they are shooting at Godzilla! They don’t HAVE to be accurate!’
I have always had a passion for the sciences, specifically theoretical physics. The things that I have read about that can be shown mathematically go beyond science fiction, and defy imagination. Picturing superstrings, membranes, wormholes, and ten physical dimensions in ones head seems dull to most, but fascinating to me. Writing a college thesis on ‘Three Popular Motion Pictures and their Adherence to the Laws of Theoretical Causality’ was the most fun I ever had in comp 102. And anyone who understands the title knows what I mean!
Anyone who knows a lot of any information about any subject, and is proud of it, is a geek. This is true whether the information is pertaining to your profession or not. If you enjoy being a lawyer, you are a law geek, plain and simple.
Love it, be proud of it, embrace it, cherish it, and accept it. Then say it with me…
‘One of us… one of us!!!’
I hate Christmas.
Ok, I take it back, I don’t necessarily hate Christmas, but the ‘Holiday Season’ as a whole makes me want to hang myself. Call me what you will, but I think a lot of us have lost the spirit of the holidays.
I remember when it was good enough to have the occasional Christmas carol in a department store a couple of weeks before the big day came along. I remember when the ‘Season’ didn’t start until after Thanksgiving, and not right before Halloween. I can remember, not so long ago, when saying ‘Merry Christmas’ was considered a nice thing to say, and not as offensive as a racial epithet. I remember when Christmas wasn’t a bad word.
I love Christmas morning. I enjoy being with the ones I love, sharing gifts, stories, and meals in a dimly lit living room under the glow of the Christmas tree. I love the look on my brother’s faces when they open a gift that they really wanted, and they were sure that they weren’t going to get. There is nothing like being with good friends and family on Christmas.
It’s the month BEFORE the day that drives me nuts.
Every single year since the e-business boom, I have sworn to myself that I was going to start doing all of my shopping online six weeks before Christmas so that I can have everything in and wrapped two weeks out. Every single year, I end up doing none of my shopping online, and taking so long to decide what I am going to buy people, my shopping never gets finished until a couple of days before the 25th.
I have spent so much time in department stores over the past couple weeks that I am seriously considering starting my shopping for next year online in January. I have only a finite amount of patience left for the big box stores. The places I have been to have become so crowded recently that you can’t get past someone without smelling the Caesar salad they had for lunch. People seem as if they are standing in aisles, waiting from instructions from a higher power. I swear sometimes, I just want to drop my shoulder like a full back and run them the hell over.
There is only so much I can take. At work, on the radio, in the mall, and the department stores all I hear are Christmas carols. It is nice to hear once and a while, but just like any music, when it is browbeaten into me it makes me want to scream. If you play some of the songs backwards, I am pretty sure you can hear ‘buy more crap, buy more crap!’ being said over and over again. I wouldn’t even mind if the carols were traditional, sung by traditional artists with talent, like Bing Crosby, or Nat King Cole. But if I hear the rap version of ‘Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire’ again, I am going to start carrying earplugs with me to the mall.
People are savages when it comes to getting the perfect gift. They tend to be a bit more cordial and civil when it comes to gifts for adults, but if the gift is for a child, they become Neanderthals, willing to fight to the death. A few weeks ago, two grown men were arrested after an altercation waiting in line to purchase XBOX 360’s. Just the other day, I was witness to two rather rational-looking adults in a shouting match at my local Target for the last ‘whatever doll is popular this year’. They each seemed to be holding on to the doll like two opposing centers, trying to pry a basketball out of the others hands. I looked at them and imagined the victor watching their daughter opening the gift, and then realizing that she finds the box more interesting than the doll they fought for. I think of the kind of example they set for their children when they are at home.
There is no better example of what frustrates me than the people at Wal-Mart. The fellow customers I have run into are some of the most rude, self-involved, inconsiderate people I have ever met. I have a practice of looking at most of my shopping as linear. I get what I am looking for, I purchase it, and I get out. A great deal of people, especially at Wal-Mart, don’t realize that there are a great deal of people like me. It doesn’t bother me that people like to browse, that’s absolutely fine with me. But for the love of God, stop staring from the middle of the aisles where everyone walks. Some people are just oblivious to the fact that other people exist.
I can’t wait until Christmas Eve. I can’t wait to sit down by the fire with my family and my girlfriend and relax for the first time in a month, no longer worrying about what present I am going to get whom, and wanting to do my shopping at 3 A.M. to avoid the crowds. But most of all, I can’t wait for Christmas Eve so I can sit down by the fire with my family and girlfriend, just to enjoy their company.
Until then, if you are at a store and you hear Jack Johnson playing softly, and rattling coming your way, turn to me and wave. I won’t be able to hear you with the earphones and the Tylenol I keep in my pocket for the ‘Holiday Season Headaches’ I get might be kicking in. Try not to take it personal if I don’t say ‘hi’ or stop to chat, it’s not you, it’s just the spirit of the season.
