In an effort to sustain my independence from chemical slavery, as well as to wash off the tolerance my body’s built against it, I’ve stopped drinking heavily caffeinated beverages for the last couple of weeks.

Thus my absolute and total lack of content during the relevant period. While a prior ideological conflict (hah, more like a piss fight) demonstrated adequately to me that my linguistic skills remain unaffected, the same cannot be said for my enthusiasm- and inspirations. Without stimulants, it would seem, I revert to a state of sluggish apathy. There’s no joy to life without the bean- at least, not during the period of withdrawal.

Evidence exists, however, that even the withdrawal’s starting to life. My mental equilibrium is returning, albeit slowly, and words are starting to flow from my fingertips again.

Will I return to the bean when I recover? Absolutely. The only thing better than normalized mental processes are enhanced mental processes. Besides, finals are coming up soon- I need every edge I can get.

Now, onto something of substance. FanimeCon has came and went- and, with luck, I will have wrangled a press badge from Comic-Con as part of a two-man con report team. In the interim, I’ve reestablished and maintained contact with the otaku community- something that has both served to amuse me, disturb me, and outright piss me off at times. Let’s face it- being a Geek is no guarantor of superior mental facility. It only guarantees that the individual in question is more likely to contribute his or her efforts down paths and industries that encourages greater mental facilities- ie: the sciences, mathematics, engineering, computer science… the Thinker’s market. Whether or not their own mental facilities are up to succeeding in it cannot be determined by their Geek status- intelligence being a matter of genetics, rearing and personal ambition, and not a matter of culture.

But, wait. Now there’s an obvious, implicit question I haven’t answered: what the heck’s a Geek? It used to be that anybody outside of a fairly loosely defined social circle would be considered such- if you were weedy, semi-intellectual and badly dressed, you would be defined by the stronger, sports-oriented and fashion-oriented as Geek- a negative connotation that would be synonymous with “outsider” or “exile.”

This, I note, is no longer necessarily true. It’s an outdated definition- in the most part. While school culture in the United States, especially, is still sports-oriented and fashion-oriented, the fiscal success of self-admitted adult geeks has lent a more positive light to the concept. Bill Gates’ Evil Empire, Apple’s fashion crusades, Google’s City on the Hill, and the rapid proliferation of video games and Japanese media influences (see: Speed Racer, The Matrix, and animated shows that I don’t even need to bother listing) has not just left dents in the so-called Mainstream- they’ve redefined parts and aspects of all of our lives.

So, under the modern outlook, what is a Geek?

First, consider what isn’t. There has been efforts by others to define Geeks as passion-oriented individuals- that there is a certain level of obsession inherent in a Geek. This is true. However, this is also highly insufficient a definition. In general, baseball fans, hockey fans, basketball fans, football fans and NASCAR fans would scorn such a title upon themselves. Their passion- and obsession- with their relevant sports is undeniable- in the case of European soccer fanatics, it’s downright violent.

So here we have a clue. Fanaticism is insufficient- an integral part of the definition, but insufficient. What, then, is the rest of the key? Clearly, the target of the obsession plays a role. But, again, saying that geeks are intellectual obsessives doesn’t quite meet the mark. While a chess obsessive is easily considered Geeky- perhaps to the extreme- his or her poker-playing counterpart isn’t. Yet both are highly intellectual games- and the subject of many an ambitious doctorate thesis on the nature of game theory and probability, respectively. Yet, it is not at all a common thing to call poker players geeks- though, I note, many geeks have successfully infiltrated the poker world, especially Magic: The Gathering players, armed with a prior background in probability analysis.

So let’s split another hair. The difference between poker and chess is the focus of the reward. While there are money prizes in chess, world-class chess masters nonetheless tend towards poverty. Meanwhile, there is no dispute that poker players are in for the money first, and in for the prestige second. Geek or geekish activity would therefore be defined, in part, by its intangible reward systems- while geeks would never turn up their nose to a good bundle of cash (and, in fact, often compete amongst themselves in prize tournaments), the first lure was not the monetary rewards, but the intellectual rewards. Same with math geeks, science geeks, ect- the point isn’t to garner fame and fortune off patents and breakthroughs… but the intellectual rewards of discovery and enlightenment.

So, we have it then. Without reaching too far into exclusionary definitions, the full and proper definition of a Geek is thus: an intellectual obsessive motivated by intangible rewards.

So, what? Is this definition any better than “outsider?” Do you really need to ask? There is an inherent nobility in geekdom. Though we can be just as stupid- if not worse- than any NASCAR-obsessed redneck in the dusty prairies of the accursed Bible Belt, though our gamers can be just as dim as any beer-guzzling frat boy (actually, more and more frat members are gamers as well- especially for FPSes), the likelihood of an intellectual giant- a mover, shaker and world-changer- coming out of our end of the gene pool is many times greater than any other social tribe. We foster greatness- we encourage, more so than any other tribe, the growth and utilization of all of an individual’s intellectual potential. We were the ones that harnessed the electron and the atom. We were the ones that shrunk hundreds and thousands of miles of communication lag to the distance between your keyboard and your modem. We taught you the joys and miracles- and, admittedly, frustrations- of computational technology. We redefined communication- redefined political contests- exposed darkness, lit the torch of enlightenment, and dared to dream of an even brighter, even faster, even richer tomorrow- for all of us.

We are Geeks.

Hear us roar.