"There is
this uhm… this expression I’ve heard lately. Actually I’ve read it online. Big
surprise there. It’s called impostor syndrome. I have doubts about the things I
have achieved and most of the time I believe I cheated, that I somehow got away
with something bad I did and there is this aching feeling in my stomach that
one day all of this will come back to me and someone will point a finger to me
and express me to a wide, previously naive audience who will then realise I
have fooled them. Not sure about what, rather about everything. Fooled them
about accomplishments, about skills, and competence, that I misguided them and despite
what they think and witnessed, I have got nothing to do with the fact that I
got here."
"What made
you express this fear?"
"It’s easy.
My thesis, and my final exam. I am now a master of communication, with rather
bright colours. I got two 5s for my thesis. Everybody loved it. Universal acclaim.
My consultant wants me to go for a phd later. My opposing teacher was someone
who actually gave me a 1 during a previous semester. Couldn’t manipulate him
back then, could fool him now in terms of the now detailed complex, as he gave
me not just a 5, but 50 out of 50 points."
"What makes
you think you fooled them?"
This is
where it get’s interesting, because first I thought that I fooled them because all
I ever did was reading one good book, and reading it again, and making notes,
and using the authors notes, but then I realised that this isn’t cheating, this
was part of the job, I did what I had to do.
"And despite
accepting this you still consider yourself a fraud?"
"Yes. Can’t
escape this fear in which someone approaches me and asks some fundamental questions
about the basics of the academic discipline that I am supposed to be a master
at! In this scenario, which isn’t quite so unlikely, I can’t answer the
questions. None of them. I don’t know shit, and I want to teach later. Wouldn’t
that be epic?"
"Would it?"
"Yes! It
would be! The very rare occasion when I feel alive is when I feel other people
alive and there is only two way I can do that."
"What are
those?"
"Making love
and inspire."
"How does
inspire make you feel alive?"
"Stimulating
one’s mind is something that the physical world itself cannot do. Tap into someone’s
soul is magical, inspiring them to do something is a wonder. The universe in
itself goes for entropy and life’s answer for entropy is inspiration."
"Or
manipulation?"
"Manipulation
is going sideways, changing for another route, lane, more comfortable for one’s
needs. Inspiration is going forward, cheating is going backwards. Cheating is
destructive, such as lies, whereas inspiration is crafting. I want to be a craftsman,
but I fear I only dismantle."
"Do you fear
that the things you achieve will be destructive once they realise that they are
built upon lies?"
"Yes."
"Your
thesis, for example. If you tell someone that you have read only one book, will
it diminish the inspirations if there was any? Will it go to a waste?"
"Will it
not?"
"Seeds don’t
think about the planter once they start to grow. All they want is to get
bigger."
"Can
manipulation or cheating compromise them? Can it make them corrupt?"
"Is there a
real case of manipulations and lying and cheating which we need to consider?"
"The problem
is, avoiding the question and desperately grasping into this dilemma is that I
have no idea what other people really do and think. There is this world in all
of them and I cannot hope to understand them. All I ever do is tap onto their
projected feelings, making a connection with the portrait they are trying to put
forward, making it real, and all I ever find are half finished products, ready
to be presented to the same audience that I struggle with. I wish there was this universal map, this
scale with all the souls on it, in relevance to one another so that I could
evaluate my own habits, and thoughts and achievements."
"Such a
scale is as unrealistic as a truly objective truth about something. You cannot
hope to understand someone else’s world to the core. It would kill the magic,
the wonder that you hold so dear."
"You are
saying that things are unknowable by nature?"
"Human
things are."
"Well then,
my cheating will be well hidden as well, in which case I am in secure in terms of fraud. Wich leaves us with the other issue."
"Which is?"
"Irrelevance."
--->
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