Why are we nerds? And why are we proud to be nerds?

From my watching of vlog brothers, and it felt like a question that needed an answer.

I guess I choose to be a nerd because I believe the world is an amazing place.  I see the defining feature of a nerd as an obsessive interested in largely intellectual pursuits, usually detailed ones.

To me, the world is full of those kinds of amazing features, and getting really into them, math, the stars, what the future could be, exploring like an adventurer, is like giving the world the attention it deserves. 

So I like the enthusiasm about things, and specifically about things that make my world expand or my mind expand.  I mean that's the game connection right is that you can think about things and make them rich.

I also like being a nerd because I like to optimize my behavior.  Again with the game connection here the idea is with sufficient thought you can figure out the rules by which things work and determine the theoretical best practices for that set of parameters. 

I'm proud to be a nerd because the nerds I know have always been the best people I know.  The most intricate and interesting, the ones most able to bring those exciting mind and world expanding ideas into my life.  So I've been wanting to get into and up in nerd society since other people were doing it for popular society and for a lot of the same reasons.  Those were the people to know.