[FRIAM] Imposter complex

[glen∈ℂ]

On 5/2/19 8:30 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:> Glen writes:
> Isn't it possible this person was suffering from Inflated Self-esteem Syndrome?

Yes, he most certainly was accused of that by my peers, most of whom did not appreciate his optimism. But whatever his attributes, his claim was provocative and lead me to what I think are useful ways of thinking about my productivity.  And to your later point, I've failed to give him feedback about how useful his claim was to me. So, he would not be able to judge *his* usefulness based on continued conversation (or posting, were it an e-forum). Re: X-syndrome. I've used something similar with Renee' and her sisters.  It's called "White's Syndrome" because their surname is White. 8^)

On 5/2/19 8:37 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:> Glen,
> Here's a test.  After one makes a contribution, do other people make contributions? [...]
> Also, does posting move the POSTER'S thinking forward. [...]

Thanks! An asynchronous forum like this list isn't really what I was asking about, though. It functions a bit like a diary in that I can go back and check to see if I was on topic, if my words had productive effect (likely not), etc. And as Marcus points out, there are too many diverse reasons why a post would not receive a response. Plus, everyone on this list is smarter than I am and I have no pretensions otherwise. But in meatspace conversations, many of the people I hang out with can be intimidated by jargonal language that I can *fake* familiarity with. (One bio-modeler even commented on how well I pronounce things like "mitochondrial damage" and such ... knowing that we're both just dorks struggling to extract requirements from biologists.) I compensate by, in real-time, telling them straight up that I don't really know what I'm talking about. But that doesn't work very well. They don't believe me. What works best is to "code switch" and try to get a cold read on their vocabulary, *then* restrict whatever I say to their vocabulary (and idioms). But that's difficult to maintain. It would be nice to have real-time, meatspace tricks to do that and other things I haven't thought of.

On 5/2/19 8:53 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Well, that’s probably wrong for several reasons, but the objective of communication isn’t just to continue talking.

Yes. I'm not an academic, scholar, or writer. But the conversations here and elsewhere, even if I don't participate, help organize my world-view into something useful.