After the Ignite Detroit event, I was talking with another Andrew, who had just given a presentation about ham (amateur) radio. I noted that radio enthusiasts have for years been networking, seeking, and communicating in ways that have now become mainstream. Living in the Information Age, we have to acknowledge that the geeks got here first. In the 1980s, fans of Star Trek and Doctor Who gathered for conventions to discuss their favorite TV shows. Today, people like to discuss their favorite shows, network with other fans and provide an atmosphere of feedback. I might guess that if we didn’t have Star Trek conventions decades ago, we wouldn’t have American Idol today. (If you’re not a fan of American Idol, don’t take that as an insult.) I think of it as the geekstream, the culture where niche is normal, where everyone can participate in enthusiastic fandom.

I think back to 1996, when I did most of my Internet searching from a computer lab on campus. I’ve always had a niche taste in music, and my very favorite at the time was singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh. One day in the computer lab, I checked the message board and saw a message from Kristin’s husband that their son had just been born. I started to dash off a note, “Congratulations!” when a classmate of mine came by and asked what I was writing.

When I explained, he seemed amused. “So, it’s fan mail?”

I was a bit surprised by the choice of words. It wasn’t the type of fawning letter I think of as fan mail, wasn’t telling her I was her number one fan, wasn’t promising her I’d name my firstborn after her, wasn’t begging for a signed photo. In fact, the note had little to do with that. It said exactly what I’d say to a cousin or neighbor who had a baby.

I still post congratulations and short greetings to celebrities, but now it’s mostly on Twitter. Some might argue that this means I’m a little shallow and fame-obsessed. But I think it shows the opposite. It shows I treat the famous people in my sphere with the same kind of consideration I’d use for anyone else in my sphere. I think starstruck silence would demonstrate more fame-obsession, or if I spent weeks composing a careful letter that gushes out all my adoration for them.

With Twitter, it’s just as easy to reply to celebrities as it is not to reply. It only takes a moment to type, “@ryanseacrest Great job on last night’s American Idol! (What’s up with Danny Gokey?)” For me, it’s acknowledging that the media is part of my life, and I can thank these people for being a good part of my life. It also shows that there’s nothing unspecial about me that prevents me from saying hi.

A few weeks ago there was a college class visiting the Sunday morning service at Still Point. After the Dharma talk, Koho offered to answer questions, and there was a certain recurring theme to the questions. One, for example: “What religion were you before you became a Buddhist, and do you feel like you made the right choice?”

As much as I bristle behind the assumptions of the question, it’s probably a fair question. You wouldn’t go to a Catholic church and ask the priest, “What religion were you before you became a Catholic?”–but a place like Still Point is a little different. Only a handful of us were raised by Buddhist parents, and almost all of us came to Zen Buddhism as adults, as a conscious decision. Yet in the ways that religion is tied to culture, that decision hasn’t altered our DNA. I would still identify as a WASP, and of course the P in that stands for Protestant. The places in the world where wars are fought over religion tend to be ethnically divided as well–it’s not a conflict over some fine point of scripture so much as the tribes fighting other tribes.

But there’s a difference in the question for me, that immature belief and mature belief aren’t the same. As a child, I was told a certain set of beliefs, but it’s not like I just replaced them with a different set. If you’d asked me when I was seven years old if I believed in Jesus and The Bible and Santa Claus I’d have said sure–but my approach to Buddhism isn’t really about replacing those beliefs with contrasting propositions. It’s not like I used to believe that the holiest day of the week was Sunday and now I’ve changed my mind and say it’s probably Wednesday.

So if I look at Buddhism as my religion now, I look to what my religion was before in terms of what Buddhism is to me now. In other words, “What principles did I use to pattern my life before following the path of Buddhism?”

And honestly, there’s an answer to that. Before I was a Buddhist, my religion was materialism and consumerism.

I followed that path because I believed in striving to meet my own preferences through the consumer process. I believed that my adulthood should be focused on a career that will allow me a paycheck, and through that paycheck I would maintain a fulfilling life. Life, I believed, is supposed to fit my preferences, through earning money to make that happen. I believed that enough financial power could make me happy, make me noble and make me free.

Now, I must clarify: I wasn’t really great at that religion. I graduated from college with a BA in English. And I also can’t say that I renounced that religion, quitting it cold turkey. Consumerism is still part of my life.

But Buddha taught that our preferences are ultimately empty. He showed us how much we spin our wheels, trying, trying, trying to make the world the way we want it to be. And while he wasn’t in a world with 24-hour espresso stands, online shoe stores and ten-dollar t-shirts, he still knew this about consumerism: it will not make us happy, it will not make us noble, and it will not make us free.

I wonder if people asking how we “found Buddhism” expect us to tell them a version of “Amazing Grace”–that we were once blind, and now we see. It’s not like that for me. I keep practicing because the kind of insight that Buddha had, the deep understanding of life, is just a speck on the horizon for me. Buddhism is a path that redefines what success is, and that’s why I follow it. Meditation is an essential step on this path, a practice of cultivating mindfulness and wisdom, seeing through the wishful thinking that leads us down futile paths. Essentially, Buddhism gives me a renewed aspiration to see the world–not as I would prefer it to be–but as it is.