the spectacles & the "nerd" with a pen
people think i know what i am doing
Social critic. I don't really like the tag, the label.
Even though it is all I do when I am pissed in my free time, walking around with that label is the ultimate mark of nerdhood; maybe just below public intellectual. I don’t really have a problem with being called or being a nerd. I am. Nerdhood is the whole point of life—to bury yourself in some things, learn as much as possible and build amazing stuff for others to learn about, bury themselves in and build off from.
I just have a problem with society's (mis)conception of the nerd: bespectacled, uninteresting, boring, rizz-less, awkward. And I have been beating those stereotypes. Except for the spectacles. I know you can't cosplay 'cool kid' with two inch-thick pieces of glass (plastic?) sitting on the bridge of your nose, except of course you’re cool. I am that strange mix of a guy that reads Kant and still speaks fluent Nigerian Pidgin English generously sprinkled with slangs, some of which I think come from a cult boy's dictionary (I am learning that Port Harcourt Pidgin is heavily influenced by this lingo but what can I do?1)
So when I write essays or before I write them, I remind myself to write personal essays. To write by looking down my throat into my guts or at least to look at the world without my inch-thick spectacles.
The latter is to avoid being a-list-of-names-of-men-who-write-books-but-people-don't-really-care-about-although-they-pretend-to-to-please-polite-society. To not be proud and self-absorbed. Because looking through these spectacles, represents seeing the world as a “nerd”, as one who's judging it, as a know-it-all2. I could comment, say what I see and all that, be cautious not to be a know-it-all. Write from my real blurry, myopic vision because I can really only see about a feet before me without my glasses.
OK. Social commentator?
Can we just not do labels? How can I talk about real people-in-general without having social somewhere?
I know my writing has to make sense. It has to mean something. Do something in the real world. I can’t type out words every day for nothing. Is this for haptic pleasure? To strengthen my phalanges? There has to be some real world benefit.
And activism rings like a school bell, and resounds through the hallways of my head. Maybe, I have to stand for something, fight for something.
Better yet, because life is also a war, I have to fight against something. Against all the things that makes my blood boil. Against religious fundamentalism and pervading gullibility in general. Against mediocrity; it's continuing coronation as the standard-bearer of our times. Against anti-intellectualism and the sorry idolization of the Graveyard of Mind. Against feminism. Against the death of Virtue, against the stifling of innovation, of art. Against governmental corruption, against of the emasculation of the male, against callousness of duty, against the villainization of sex and sex life.
I am a hater. Some times I look at “people” with a slight disgust but I am no better than them.
I am not haughty, egotistical. Maybe, I am. That's why I want to be an advocate? Is all of this just some way to hide that I want to tell people what to do?
I just see some things I think everyone should see.
Really, I don't know what I am doing. And I read that many people don't either. It’s comforting. It's like being medically myopic; your vision is perfect a few inches away from your nose, but beyond that is a murky mesh of dull color getting worse as it recedes into the distance.
I think it is like that. I’ll do it like that. Do everything well for the few feet that I can see. Until I see the next. Be a social critic, commentator, short story writer, activist, essayist, whatever. For now. For the now that never ends.
I could fall into a ditch if I ran. But if I walk steadily, taking note of the way, I won't fall. I'd be fine.
And I could put my glasses on tho, lol.
with love & ink,
emmanuel
I’m like, “leadership!” and someone is like “are you them?” Omo! Scrap that!
Or more aptly, ITK (I Too Know). Oh, lawd, they called me this too much in Secondary school. It hurts as hell.
Great piece. Thought leadership through the pen.
I've missed this.