Out-of-Doors

As I begin the first draft of this post I find myself, inexplicably, outside.

You remember "outside," don't you?  It's that space between spaces, the forbidding, untamed gap between one building and the next.  An unintelligible mess of glaring sunlight one minute, relentless rain the next, of misty wet mornings, hot, stagnant afternoons, bone-chilling evenings and eerie black nights.  If the bugs don't get you, the climate will.  If the climate doesn't get you, the mud will.  And if the mud doesn't you, the raccoons will.  That's just how it works.

Ew. Nature.

We manage to keep it at bay for the most part, fortifying ourselves in our wonderful warm houses with orderly things like computers and TVs and big cushy sofas where one can sit in peace without having to worry about ugly grass stains.  But that doesn't mean the outside is gone.  By no means.  We live on mere islands in the vast sea of the wilderness.  You can't even step out your own front door without finding it, teeming with all the chaos of savage little lifeforms and fitful weather.  Sure, sometimes when you drive somewhere you can bypass nature by using intermediaries like garages so you don't have to go outside to get to or from your car; but the outdoors is never more than inches away, waiting to close in on us the moment we let our guard down . . . Much the way Kipling describes the overgrowth of a village in "The Jungle Book", in which Mowgli "let the jungle in".

Crater Lake.  It's a lake.  And it's in a crater.

And Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican, actually demanded we preserve this stuff!  Just when society was getting the hang of combatting the outdoors with safe, manmade things like factories and roads and big cities, he ordered the conservation of places like Mesa Verde in Colorado, Crater Lake in Oregon, and the tellingly named Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

Consider the inconvenience of nature.  Do you know how hard anyone has to focus their eyes just to see across a pond anymore?  Heaven knows the eyes were meant to see only as far as the length of a desk—because that's as far as it takes to watch a computer monitor.  And what about having to physically cross the distances in nature?  Sure, grass, may look soft and springy, but it's full of ugly little sharp surprises like acorns.  It's no wonder our ancestors built roads.  Can you imagine how anyone crossed this nonsense barefoot?  Yes, I've heard rumors of this process called callousing, but I'm pretty sure it's all a myth.  Clearly we were meant by our Creator to hide our soles in shoes or He'd never have made them so pink and soft in the first place.  I mean, what are we—hobbits?

Crazy hole people.
Like the outdoors so much they built houses in it.

Some people actually like to travel just to see more of this 'Nature.'  What are they doing?!  Don't they know how very real and close-to-home this threat is?  All they have to do is walk out their front door and there they are!

And no, don't you do that—don't you call Nature beautiful.  Nature kills.

Kills.

I mean, the very fact that you're reading this tells me you'd rather be sitting here, at a computer, than spending time outside.  Making the noble sacrifice of forgoing fresh air, sunshine, natural beauty and exercise in favor of closed, comfortable things like air conditioning and internet.  Even if you're on a laptop, at least you're not up and moving around in nature, your attention is fixed firmly on the screen in front of you.  And how could you want it any other way?  I mean, what does nature have to offer, exactly?

Scenic views?  You can always look at photographs on the internet.  (It's okay, at the rate your vision is going you'll only be able to appreciate things in 2-D anyway.)

Wild animals?  Please, the only animals you don't find in a pet shop are man-eaters.  Everyone knows that.

Exercise?  Don't make me laugh.  Why go out to run or walk or climb or swim or whatever when you can pay for all that in a nice gym with air-conditioning, tv screens, and hundreds of other people?

Fresh air?  That's what FANS are for.  DUH.

A view of the stars?  That is what a skylight is for.  So once you have gone inside, you can peer up through a tiny hole in your ceiling at a handful of tiny blinking lights no one really cares about anyway.

Snow sports?  Okay, first of all, anything as tedious a lugging a sled back up a hill in thick boots is nothing short of work.  And don't get me started on snowmen.

Dancing in the Rain? . . . People actually do this?

Or how about: Taking time to reflect free of the distractions of everyday media like cellphones, internet and television?

. . .

. . . I know.  Like I even have to tell you how heinous that would be.

Nerddom: The Wisdom of Next Gen

Today I'd like to impart to you some of the longstanding wisdom of "Star Trek:  The Next Generation."  Specifically from Episode Six of Season Five—"The Game"—Because it demonstrates, so beautifully, the value of being an incorrigible nerd.  (I assume it's okay to discuss spoilers from a show that stopped airing almost twenty years ago . . .)

The episode begins when Commander Riker is introduced to the game while taking his shore leave on Risa.  Part of a flimsy, innocent-looking headset, it taps directly into the brain through the eyes, creating a mental display of the game's playing field while one wears the headset.  While the outside world is still visible in the background, the foreground of the player's visual range is taken up by a playing field occupied by disks and cones—the object being to mentally coax the disks into the cones.  When Riker asks, "How do I do that?" he is told, "Just let go.  Relax.  You'll do it."

Sounds creepy reading it, I know, but Riker doesn't know he's in the middle of an introduction to 45 minutes of a popular sci-fi drama.  So he follows the advice, finds the disk falling into the cone, and blinks in not-quite-unpleasant surprise as the game floods his brain with endorphins.  Naturally he takes the game with him back to the Enterprise and is seen for the next few minutes of the show urging his coworkers to try it.

Meanwhile we follow the story of Wesley Crusher, who arrives on the Enterprise after a term at Starfleet Academy and quickly makes a connection with a young woman in Engineering named Robin Lefler.  His mother, recently acquainted with the game (Riker's been replicating headsets for his friends) tries to rope him into playing it but backs off when he explains that he's got a date with Robin.

Well, on this romantic outing to—you guessed it—Ten Forward, the game comes up in conversation.  They marvel at its rise in popularity.  "Don't you think that's a little strange, everyone playing it at the same time?" asks Wesley.  Robin rolls her eyes.  "It's just a fad.  It's here this week, next week we won't even know it existed."  Considering its massive popularity, the two decide to see what all the fuss is about and try it out themselves.

Oh, wait, no they don't.  Because they're MASSIVE GEEKS.  "I wonder how it works?" says Wesley.  Robin smiles—"Why don't you try it and find out?"  "I'd like to know a little bit more about it before I try it."  "I bet if we worked together we could figure it out."  ". . . Yeah!  We could hook it up to one of the computers!  The medical programs in the lab can be set up to emulate human responses."  "I notice it uses a visual interface; we could connect it through an optical sensor."  And before you know it they're off to perform critical scientific analysis of popular recreation.  Because it's awesome.

Robin looks at a readout of the game's simulated effects and Wesley notices something peculiar on another screen.

Of course when they run this analysis dark things are revealed, they begin an adventure, and ultimately save the Enterprise from imminent danger—danger that would have in no way been detected by the unsuspecting crew had two nerdy kids not taken nerdy initiative and done nerdy things with mainstream entertainment.  Because nerddom rules and must be respected.  And the fact that I'm citing an already nerdy source to make a point should in no way detract from the message of this post, which is essentially the lesson we all must learn:  BECAUSE NERDS!  That's right, be a nerd!  Be a geek!  Respect nerds!  Respect geeks!  Encourage those laughable little figures typing furiously away at code, reading great big books with teeny tiny print, putting every other bug they find under a microscope, sketching dragons and bouncing with delight when they spot the words "BAD WOLF" graffitied under an overpass.  You never know.  We might just save your lives one day . . .