Psychology

Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade has written one of the bravest bits on personal psychology that I have read in a long time. Seriously, of all the things that I have personally read about psychology and have experienced personally, this perhaps one of the astondingly reflective and honest discription of what's it like to deal with a psychological problem.

It was almost impossible to go get help though because the very nature of the illness prevents you from getting it. So I worry alot, I know that. So I start to think maybe I worry too much. Maybe I have a real problem. Then I think, "no I'm just worrying too much". This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. It's fucking inescapable like some kind of brain trap. So I have to write off this fear that I might actually be sick as another example of my needless worrying. Add to that the fact that I worry that if I do go to a doctor he'll tell me I have some kind of brain disease or I'm not treatable or maybe just as bad that there's nothing wrong with me. All this shit piles up and the result is that I'm 30 and I've never gone to the doctor about it until yesterday.

I started crying a bit a this part here. It cut very close to how I feel about myself and the way I am. I have often credited Penny-Arcade for it's quality work, but this is the first time I have wanted to send a strong message to Mike Krahulik that I am simply humbled by him.

Psychological problems are all too often linked to nerd culture. This could be simple depictions of nerds in the media as socially awkward individuals (see: Steve Urkel, Brian Johnson) or the litany of various claims that video games, comic books, and television would lead to psychological disorders. The Japanese have historically drawn much of their presuppositions on nerds from Akio Nakamori's "Mの時代"(The age of M). This was a case study of Tsutomu Miyazaki a famous serial killer. Since Miyazaki was also an otaku, the connection was commonly held that otaku may also harbor psychotic tendencies. (Similar distinctions have been made of both the Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Seung-Hui Cho.)

I personally find it difficult to rationalize this in my mind. The only thing I could say is this. Perhaps there could be an attraction phenomenon. Reduced down, the promise of nerd culture could be said to be the promise of escapism. To be free from our physical and social restraints, of only in our minds and play with "what ifs" that would otherwise couldn't be. This could become a very attractive solution to people who are dissatisfied with their own reality. I take as an example Spider-man. If you're a kid living in a poor Jewish Romanian immigrant family in New York city, what better dream than to have someone who selflessly protects the people of the city. Even Peter Parker himself was a role model for me. When things in my life didn't work out very well and I felt like a failure, it made me feel a little better to know that even being a failure made me bit more like Peter Parker. In a time in which secular thinking is held at a pedestal, and we are no longer soaked in a culture of religious fervor, perhaps nerd culture acts as the non-spiritual solace which those who need it, seek it.