Nerds

It takes all kinds of people in this world to make it interesting. Specifically, the nerds. I feel like I need to define what I believe to be a nerd before continuing any further. I believe it is someone that takes a hobby way too seriously. A person that focuses in on something fun and interesting and tun it into a way of life. Sometimes this attitude or interest can be so mild it can at times go unnoticed. But for a nerd, this hobby, form of entertainment, or even sport is almost a religion to the point of putting others off and sometimes even offending them.

There are slow food nerds, bicycling nerds, and workout nerds. These are all fun and even good for you in moderation but for a nerd, if you don't practice these everyday all day, that makes you less. There are chess nerds, physics nerds, and computer gadget nerds (PC and whatever that other one is called). Nice to have the knowledge, but when you are not buying food this week so you can be the first guy with the newest technical calculator the day it comes out...that doesn't seem logical.

There are of course the fun kind of nerds. These are the guys that take something we all enjoy a little and over analyze it to death. There are Star Trek nerds and Star Wars nerds (do not get those two confused). There are twitter nerds and facebook nerds. There are drama nerds and TV nerds. Film geeks and theater freaks. Cos play and role play. Something that is really fun for a bit but blown way out of proportion.

The reason I am talking nerds so much is because the other day I had a thought: what if all the nerds (and we are all one kind or another) spent all the time and money that we spent on those things and focused them on things that matter? How many lives could change if the guy that built a life sized replica of the ship on Firefly (the ship's name is Serenity. Again, we are all nerds here.) and instead gave even just half of that to a homeless shelter? What would happen if instead of focusing on one of life's passions, we focused on our purpose?

We all have passions. We all have a purpose. Our purpose on this planet, right now, today is not to amass the world's largest Superman memorabilia collection. Our purpose is not to study the Star Wars encyclopedia so we can analyze why George Lucas made Han shoot second in the remake.Our purpose isn't even to study the elvish poems from Lord of the Rings. Our purpose is to serve one another. To make life better for our fellow man. To love one another and to sacrifice for those that are truly in need. If we were so passionate about ending world hunger we poured ourselves into it the same amount of hope and spirit we do into the playoffs every year.

Imagine what the world would be like if our passions were our purpose and our purpose was our passion.