Thread by @QiaochuYuan

one of my longstanding interests i don't really talk about because it's very rude is "nerd theory," in the sense of having a theory of nerds: why do nerds have that voice? why don't nerds like sports? why do nerds have bad posture? why do nerds *look younger*?

anyway i have a rough draft of a theory now, the one-sentence summary is not that complicated it turns out:

a nerd is a person who is tense all the time

holding chronic tension in the body produces nerd voice, nerd face, makes posture bad, and makes physical activity subtly painful and unpleasant, hence avoiding sports

("tense all the time" is a pretty succinct gesture towards what it feels like to have complex PTSD also, but we don't need to get into that here; having a story about where the tension comes from is less important than the raw phenomenology of it)

https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1486160284049809411

(although otoh looking directly for the tension is complicated by the fact that at the beginning you'll likely have little access to a lot of it due to numbness)

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1448183962543669251

"look younger" is the one i feel the least confident about but vaguely speaking i think holding chronic tension diverts bodily resources away from the physical maturation process, especially during puberty. it may specifically interfere with sex hormone production, idk

there's a whole 'nother aspect of the nerd phenomenon that has to do with the particularities of nerd obsessions and nerd thinking; i have fewer speculations about this because it overlaps with autism stuff i can't claim to understand at all

but loosely speaking thinking and getting lost in thoughts can be a coping mechanism (i don't mean this as a criticism; coping mechanisms are good, they're for coping, it's right there in the name)

enneagraminstitute.com/type-5

one version of what you could call my main thesis that i'm exploring on twitter is: it is possible to go from being a nerd to being a jock, to go from being tense all the time to not being tense all the time

https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1485778343286882310

tensions can be discovered and met and understood and loved and melted and integrated and all sorts of stuff; we have many ways to do this stuff now and we can use them and spread the word

https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1480639822565818369

lately i've been focusing on tension in my legs and pelvis (historically i've focused on tension in my chest and gut) and i definitely don't feel done with it yet but there have already been moments that walking and running feel amazing 🥲

https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1486819646959341569

other nerd stuff i don't feel like i understand as well: wearing glasses (is this just from not getting enough sunlight?), allergies (spending time indoors + autoimmune issues from chronic tension?)... there must be other stuff, what else?

some amendments: "Nerdness involves contraction of the body, granted, but it involves expansion elsewhere"

"being in one's head" as primary which someone else also mentioned

https://twitter.com/PrinceVogel/status/1486884241942138883

also, several people have mentioned this and they're right: something shadowy for me here about how i feel about nerds and being a nerd 😬

another amendment: i’ve been informed that many jocks are also very tense which, yeah, makes sense (eg finance bros). my source says jocks hold their tension in a more diffuse way throughout their whole being 🧐