[FRIAM] Imposter complex (was: A Question For Tomorrow)

[glen∈ℂ]

On 5/1/19 10:55 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> I agree.  See the earlier post about Smolin versus Aaronson.  Some people use common language to show you how smart they are; others use it to give you a tool to become smarter yourself.  We do the best we can to identify who is who, in areas we can’t referee on our own.

My schizotypy kicked in when I read this last night. First, I reacted like a choir member. "Yes! Amen!" Then I thought, "Oh sh¡t. Maybe I'm the former. What am I doing with my life?" Then I thought, "Nah. Eric's just wrong. The dichotomy is false. Everyone engages in a little of both from context to context." But then I thought, "Hey, this sounds like the problems I had when I was hired into a dot-com after Swarm Corp failed."

Taking a mid- to high-level technical position after your company fails can be difficult. I was hired as part "information architect" and part "engineering manager", neither of which I felt good at, or even really understood what those words meant. The person who hired me said I was suffering from "imposter complex", which when I just now googled it, seems to be better termed "imposter syndrome". I still don't know if that was true, then, or is even true now. After I get a pint in me, I invoke Dunning-Kruger and believe my doubts are evidence that I'm competent enough to avoid over-estimating my competence.

But I don't have a similar trick to reflectively police my own rhetoric and distinguish when I've been talking to "show how smart I am" versus talking to contribute to the competence of everyone involved. I used to keep a diary (well, a "journal" because men aren't supposed to keep diaries). And it was relatively obvious re-reading what I'd wrote where I'd been childish or self-centered in an entry versus thoughtful and productive. Even if I still kept a journal, though, such discrimination was only in hind-sight. It would be good to have Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) style discriminators that could be applied in real-time.

Anyone have any suggestions?