From the library: Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton

Last updated on: August 4, 2015 at 11:24 am by Jane the Actuary

From the library: Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton 2015-08-04T11:24:43-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Just looked at the comments on my prior post on unplanned parenthood, and I ought to respond —

(For the record:

“sorry, but The Atlantic did treat the pro-life ‘unplanned parenthood’ stories as somehow not tragic enough; in any case, there was a recent study of women who wanted abortions but sought them out too late, and who, in the end, loved their kids after all, demonstrating that an unwanted pregnancy is not the same as an unloved child”;

“there is a difference between contraception and abortion — I am not discussing whether an author is making a reasonable choice in forgoing contraception, but rather looking to her insights on abortion and whether ‘we need legal abortion to guarantee that sex will never result in a child unless youwant it to” is a reasonable position to take”; and

“I used the wrong tense — should have said ‘which comes first’ – in an individual’s moral reasoning”)

— but, to be honest, I go back-and-forth on this. I don’t expect I’m going to change anyone’s mind, nor, really, that I’m going say something that strikes others as exceptionally insightful. On the other hand, well, I blog for an audience, and try to write interesting things, but I also blog because I want to be able to say the things that are floating around in my head.

But here’s what I read yesterday — literally “from the library” but actually from the library used book sale, having not quite reconciled myself to the fact that they withdraw books that are perfectly good, not outdated from a content perspective, but just older and not checked out very often. (Holocaust memoirs, it seems to me, are at particular risk — there are no new ones being published, but the older ones will, from their age, soon show up as “too old.” One that disappeared that I was particularly shocked at was a “memoir” of a Jewish policeman in the ghetto — he wrote it while in hiding at the end of the war, and didn’t survive the war. It was quite eye-opening, but when I went to re-read it later, I had to request it from interlibrary loan.)

And this book is 11 years old by now. You can date it if for no other reason than the first sentence: “Most of the material in this book was originally written for my weblog, (the cool kids call it a “blog”) an almost daily diary that I publish at my website, wilwheaton.net.”

The book itself: it’s written by Wil Wheaton, per the title of the post, but it’s not a memoir of his child actor/Star Trek days, except in passing; it covers a fairly short period in his life, from 2001, when he started blogging, to late the next year. And the funny thing is, due to the fact that he’s now appeared on The Big Bang Theory as a slightly evil version of himself several times, and we’ve watched several Tabletop episodes (a Youtube show in which Wil demonstrates/plays board games, such as Catan or Munchkin), it’s easy to think of him as someone you know already.

(Plus, we’ve been watching Star Trek episodes from the DVD set I got for my birthday and the voice for the German version of Wesley Crusher seems to me to be a bit extra-whiney, so it’s easier to understand the mindset of the Wesley-haters, even though I never had a particular opinion on that debate.)

Anyway, two things happened during this time period: first, he discovered blogging, at a time when the concept was quite new (and, as a geek, he coded the site himself ) and, second, he learned to accept the decisions he made in the past and move on, building a career and a life for himself beyond one “we chose the other guy” audition after the next.

Now, the one-star reviews (a minority) on amazon.com complain that he’s just recycling blog material, but that’s a silly complaint to make, as this has become standard practice — everyone from Hyperbole and a Half to that 365-day crockpot cooking woman have done this, and before that, you had the example of newspaper columnist collections.

And others complain that he’s too self-absorbed — but that’s pretty much the whole point. The turning point in the book is when he unexpectedly gets two sitcom auditions and stays home from the family vacation (he is married with two stepsons) for them, only to have them go badly and realize he shouldn’t have cancelled on his family for this slim thread of hope at a new acting job. He then decides to focus on writing, both on his blog, and transforming the blog items into published text, realizing that his past choices were being driven by that voice in his head that he calls Prove To Everyone That Quitting Star Trek Wasn’t a Mistake.

He also writes about his initial desire to leave Star Trek behind and his later “return home,” reconnecting with cast members and beginning to appear at conventions, not just unhappily earning needed cash, but out of enjoyment, and a new connection to fans, especially due to his developing connections with them through his willwheaton.net writing. In a late episode, he cites a conversation with a convention organizer where is says, “I tell him that I have more in common with the fans now than I do with the actors” – and, in fact, the “Just a Geek” title refers to a lifetime love of science fiction, D&D, computers, and other geeky pursuits. (I identify because I sometimes think of my public-policy reading as equally geeky, though with different subject matter.)

Now, a look at his website in 2015 or a read of his Wikipedia profile will show that he’s been pretty busy, at the intersection of the gaming and acting worlds, and I imagine that the bill-paying crises of the book are past. But for the duration of this book, he’s just another guy trying to figure out where he’s headed, and realizing, over the course of the book, in “real time” (via the blog entries), that the destination he thought was always meant for him, wasn’t so.

So check out your library book sale. And in the meantime, for those of you who like to share: please tell us about your Wil Wheaton experiences.

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