Were you involved in extracurricular activities growing up? Did you benefit from it?

[Denninmi]

I was not allowed to do anything - no organized activities, no friends, nothing.

I can look back now and see how much differently life could have turned out if I had had positive outside influences.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. After I obtained my driver's license, yes.

I mostly lived too far away from school to do much, but I did wrestle and run cross country. Neither with any spectacular success, (I was not a sporty kid) but it was fun and beneficial and running in particular has become a lifelong habit.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. My organized activities were unconventional

In college I was president of an academic society and made the varsity and ROTC rifle teams all four years.
It was a plus having school be more than just a number of classrooms and tests.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. I was never really a joiner.

I think much, but not all, of my issue with the extracurricular activities I was often forced into was the type of activities, themselves. I was not a terribly athletic kid, myself, although there were some sports I was marginally proficient at; baseball, and once I filled out, to a certain extent football-- (basketball? Despite the height, Forget it) ... Interestingly enough, in High School I showed some aptitude for wrestling, which was unexpected. College my preferred sports were the keg tap and the bong pull, and of course frisbee golf.

I think quirky, smart, nerdy kids like myself had a much harder time when I was growing up, just because there wasn't so much available for us. Along with the fact that geek culture was not globally transcendent like it is, now... in my day, geeks were just geeks.

I will say, D, that I'm sorry growing up was so tough for you. I had my issues and difficulties and certainly some fucked up family shit, but not to your extent- I have a great deal of respect for what it sounds like you've come through to get where you're at, today.

[Denninmi]

4. "Geeks were just geeks"

How true, I was one, about the only thing I wasn't in to from that culture was fantasy fiction, Lord of the Rings, and Dungeons and Dragons, both "in" when I was junior high/high school age. Computers were my thing, I thought my VIC20 and then Commodore 64 were "it". - kinda laughable in light of my iPad buddy here, which I'm using to post this.

Warren, I alternate between feeling like I'm too much of a wimp and should just suck it up and forget it, and posting about these experiences because it's inexpensive augmentation to therapy, which, no matter what else, is not inexpensive.

However, therapy is so worth it. I would never be able to get this stuff out in a healthy way without professional guidance, much as if I were running a small business I could never handle the financials without a good CPA.

I go weekly to therapy. In November, I told my therapist I was good job security for her, that we had enough to talk about until at least February .... Of 2016.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Yeah, I was one of those Dungeons & Dragons kids. Never read LOTR- still can't, too dry- but I did

enjoy the escapist fantasy aspect of the game. It was basically a computer game before you had the computer. I still love that sort of stuff.

I read a lot of Science Fiction, but I couldn't get into Fantasy in terms of reading; don't know why- I think I had, up to a point in my life, a very literal sort of brain about that kind of thing... I could escape into it through a game, but for some reason if I was going to read about it I had to understand the logic or the rationality behind the world and the story... Science fiction, okay, yeah, it's the future, it's technology, maybe it's an outlandishly improbable combo of those; but at least there's a logical path where you presumably get there from something sort of like here. Middle Earth, I was like, what the fuck is that? What's the relation to our reality? I didn't get it. (Later my mental doors got cracked open a bit more -probably the drugs- and it wasn't a problem anymore. I've really been enjoying the George RR Martin stuff lately.)

And my wife was the opposite; never got into Sci Fi, never played D&D but was a major LOTR fan.

Computers, too- I remember the Commodore 64, The TRS-80, the Apple II. How funny that, in those days, "computers" were something only the MAJOR nerds - kids like me- were interested in. For kids now, I mean, if you're not at least moderately connected, you're the one who is out of it.

[Denninmi]

6. I can tell you in one word why I couldn't get into the LOTR thing.

Boring.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I tell you what, though, those song of ice and fire books are a good yarn.

With all the sex and moral ambiguity Tolkein lacks.

[Tabasco_Dave]

8. Stage Crew

It was the only club that stoners and misfits could join.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Like I said, Frisbee Golf

best stoner sport ever, if you've got the weather for it.

[Gore1FL]

10. I was crammed into everything siblings did before me through grade 8.

I just did marching band and golf as far as major time eaters were concerned in high school. (golf was my only non-sibling blazed path I managed to take.)

Mostly, I would have preferred to fuck off during the time, or at least not be at school even if I was doing something productive.