Speak Out 3: The Power of Geek

I am the Warden and I am a geek!!

There's a healthy combination of events going on in today's post, one I had not planned on until just a few moments ago. It's the final day for Speak Out With Your Geek Out and it's the one year anniversary of a rather traumatic event. How do they both come together? Better than chocolate and peanut butter, as it turns out.

On September 17th of 2010, I was the victim of a terrifying car accident. Seeing as my lawyer will bust a nut when he finds out I'm posting about it online during the ongoing negotiations, I will keep the details to a minimum yet express the consequences of that fateful day as concisely and dramatically as I can. These are the facts. As I drove straight through an intersection on a busy highway nearly 20 minutes from home at 100 km/h, I was struck by an oncoming car attempting to make a left turn. The impact sent my car into an adjacent ditch, causing a calcaneus fracture to my right foot and a severe concussion. Once settled in the ditch, the car quickly caught fire. I got out of the car and dragged myself away before it become completely engulfed in flames. How exactly that happened is uncertain because I have no memory of the event.

But that's not what we're here to talk about today. We're going to talk about the other 364 days since playing Hollywood stuntman and how my passion for roleplaying games has helped pull me through these trying times.

Speak Out: The Good and the Bad

I am the Warden and I am a Geek!!

I've never been comfortable with all of this recent "tolerance" towards geeks. I grew up in the 90s where D&D remained a satanic ritual performed by scrawny weaklings were too much of a puss to shoot up their school like normal kids (their words, not mine). That's what I'm used to and honestly, I miss those days. When you did let it out that you played D&D, the look was a mixture of "Oh, you poor bastard" and "Jesus, get the fuck away from this guy." Now shows like The Big Bang Theory have made us... um, popular? See, I can't even say it without falling into disbelief. Just last month, I had a firefighter - a man who grew up on the high school football team - play his first RPG and loved it. My head still shakes over that.

Since I'm going to turn 40 in a couple of years, I'm going to start early on saying this. You kids don't know how lucky you have it now.

Speak Out With Your Geek Out! is a day to encourage those feeling excluded or misunderstood for their hobbies by society at large by regaling them with stories of triumph and understanding. To let you all know you are not alone and, while we may still operate on the fringes of society, we are many. Don't let our weight problems fool you, we can also be a highly active, motivated people. I'm posted this today because I was also a shy, geeky kid who's grown up to be a quiet, nerdy adult with a drawer for roleplaying shirts in his dresser.

I have two stories today, one spotlighting the tribulations of growing up with D&D and another highlighting the strengths of roleplaying. As any motivational speaker would, I'll start with the bad story.