It's Interesting...

… I spoke with someone recently who said they wondered what their life would have been like without geek culture, and they seemed to totter a bit on whether or not it would have been a good thing.

I certainly have had some unpleasant experiences because I was a nerd, or a fan of nerd things. I definitely put myself apart from other girls my age in school, for one thing.

So I asked myself this question, would my life have been better if I had never taken a fancy to FLIGHTS of fancy?

For me, it's no question. Even aside from meeting my beautiful husband playing Dungeons and Dragons, even aside from fantasy and manga helping to draw my son away from social anxiety, even aside from having a career that I love writing the things that make my heart most glad, I still would never trade.

I try to imagine a world without Lord of the Rings, without comic books, without Star Wars or Star Trek, without Galaxy Quest and Ziggy Stardust, without Alien and Stephen King, without Black Canary and Harry Potter, without Cerebus and Strangers in Paradise, without Skyrim and Moebius, without Hellboy and the Flaming Carrot, without Jack Kirby and Doctor Who, without Godzilla and the Shadow, without Cthulhu and Chun Li, without Tarzan and Plastic Man, without role-playing games and Game Boys, without the Simpsons or Futurama, without Judge Dredd and Sandman, without the Exorcist and Sergio Aragones,  without Mystery Science Theater and Disneyland, without Creepy and Alice Cooper, without Nightmare Before Christmas and Snoopy, without Leia and Lois and Lilo and all the other heroines who taught me that being female didn't mean you couldn't be kickass.

It's weird, but not only can I not imagine my life without all of these things (and lots, lots more…), I can't actually imagine my life with ANY of these missing. So much of what I love in life comes from geeks and nerds and genius fantasists. So much of my sense of wonder and my sense of humor were honed by the quality of these well-made things, these adventurist visions.

I grew up on a tiny farm in the boonies, miles away from anything. No television, very little to fire the imagination. My love of fantasy started with Beatrix Potter and never slowed down for a moment, since. In a way, there's a direct line from the first time I heard a Peter Rabbit story being read to me at bedtime to pretty much the entire life I live at this moment.

It all feels like a gift, something given to my life that I truly love.

Why would anyone ever want to give all those worlds up?