Here we go...

So I've kind of always wanted to blog, but as a product of a generation that only enjoys things ironically, I've never really done it.  The idea that you need a reason to blog ASIDE from just blogging for the sake of it is not just vital, but required.

"I'd rather not blog, but (insert something glamorous) demands it!"

And thus, I enter a near decade of only thinking about blogging.  However, I have just read recently about the concept of New Sincerity. The idea behind it is that you do something and shamelessly enjoy it because... (wait for it)... you enjoy it!  I stumbled onto it while reading about the Brony phenomenon where grown men publicly embrace a cartoon made for young girls and that they do it NON-IRONICALLY!

It's dangerous to go alone.  Take this!

For someone of my generation, this is sadly mind blowing.  I remember hiding my D&D and comic book collections from my jock friends due to this kind of thing.  Only the socially clueless would read the Player's Handbook in the cafeteria at lunchtime!  Or.. do they?  Bronies are brazen of their enjoyment, citing the animation, humor, character development, and intelligence of the show.  When challenged on the whole "isn't it for a 5 year old girl" part, they will challenge you back with "Can you really criticize me if you haven't watched it?"  (For the record, I have now watched it.  While I don't understand the passion of the Bronies, I will gladly admit that it is a very entertaining show.)

It has been written about Steve Jobs that he possessed a Reality Distortion Field that allowed him to convince people around him, through confidence and charisma, that improbable things were possible.  Steve Jobs likely could have read a D&D book at lunch and would eventually have the school playing rpgs by the end of the year.  Yet where is this point where one develops a distortion field?  On one hand you have people so preoccupied with "coolness" that they are empty inside, and yet there is also the funny smelling kid who is so passionately into his own thing that he ultimately distorts no one's reality but his own.  Where is this line?

Gates could only dream of rockin a turtleneck this way

I feel part of it must lie in social connectedness yet also considerable ego strength.  An ability to bond to others but also to deviate from this when it contradicts your desires.  It takes a unique type of courage that comes from self respect and integrity to love something shamelessly. It's the kind of courage I would like my kid to have, but the only way I could teach something like that is to try to figure it out for myself.

So here we go.