Having Imposter Syndrome Three Times Over
Jul. 30th, 2017 12:34 pmDunning-Krueger Syndrome is the name given to two different problems at the opposite ends of competence.
At the low end, Dunning-Krueger says that there are people who are so incompetent at a skill that they exhibit "illusory superiority." They don't have the self-awareness, either by learning or temperament, to judge their own competence. Think Sarah Palin or Donald Trump: these people are obviously cunning at something, but running a state or country in accordance with the law is not among their skillsets.
At the high end, Dunning-Krueger refers to the tendency of highly competent people to judge their skills harshly. These people do know what they don't know. They know that, within their own sphere of expertise, there is so much more to learn than what they themselves can ever know. When encountering another expert, the other may exhibit some non-overlapping knowledge, leading the first to conclude that his body of knowledge smaller than the other's, and by extension smaller than all others. When encountering another practitioner, they may look at what the other person has accomplished and judge their own accomplishments as paltry and unworthy.
The latter is popularly called Imposter Syndrome. It comes with the consequent anxiety that your peers will someday find out how little you know and laugh you out of your profession. Or your manager will someday figure out how little you actually do all day and fire you.
As a software developer who's far too aware that there's so much more to computer programming and computer science than I can ever learn in my lifetime, I suffer from this anxiety a lot. Not as much as I used to. I've started to realize that, with contributions to be found in several major pieces of open source software (including four lines in Apache which mean that you, yes you, no matter who you are, no matter what device you used, if you were on the Internet today, you ran code I wrote. Three billion people every freakin' day run code I wrote), and a deeper knowledge of Javascript and Python than most programmers will ever bother, I'm not actually too bad at this stuff. I have an entire bookshelf of books on how to write software, so overflowing there's a stack on the floor, not to mention the 90+ PDFs waiting for me to read.
The thing is, I'm also a writer. I don't particularly write for money, but I enjoy writing a lot, and I've written a few million words just for the pleasure of telling stories, mostly science fiction, mostly romantic and sexy, just because I like to. And I've garnered a lot of fans over the years, many of whom put money in the tip jar. With a half-dozen novels and a 300+ episode space opera generating a small but real income, I've come to appreciate that I can tell a good story. It just takes a lot of work, and an appreciation of the English language. I have another entire bookshelf of "how to write" books, some of which actually helped, and I love to sit with other writers and talk craft, and they actually recognize that I'm one of them.
I like to cook. I don't do it professionally, but I've never poisoned anyone and the general consensus is that I'm pretty good at it. I have yet another entire bookshelf* of cookbooks that intimidate the hell out of me, like the one on Indian cooking, and the book on breadmaking, and the book on chocolates. But the two books of Recipes from the New York Times are regular go-to books for what to took, I often make recipes I just find on the web: I made Korean Sticky Chicken last night and my only regret was going light on the gochujang (a smoky fermented Korean hot sauce) since the younger kid is a wimp when it comes to spicy foods, but otherwise it came out very tasty and delicious, along with stir-fried vegetables and sticky rice.
And this is where my Imposter Syndrome kicks in hard: I can't possibly be highly competent in three wildly different fields, can I? I start to panic: What am I doing wrong? What don't I know that I'm supposed to know? What nefarious reasons to people have for telling me I'm pretty good at these things?
I'm never going to be a Richard Feynman or Julia Child or Claude Shannon, all of whom were extremely competent in multiple fields. I'm just not a person who can sit still. Not even at fifty years of age. I guess there have to be a lot of people like me— I have a friend who's wildly skilled programmer, writer, and motorcycle mechanic, and another who's wickedly skilled at programming and a world-class historian and a cook to boot. And we all have Imposter Syndrome.
*(I'm starting to see a theme here I've never noticed before: when I'm fairly good at something, I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to it, frequently more than one. On the other hand, I have an entire bookshelf on how to draw and paint, and I'm a terrible illustrator mostly due to a lack of time to practice the basics. Whether or not the entire bookshelf of sex manuals has been helpful I will leave for volunteers to find out.)
At the low end, Dunning-Krueger says that there are people who are so incompetent at a skill that they exhibit "illusory superiority." They don't have the self-awareness, either by learning or temperament, to judge their own competence. Think Sarah Palin or Donald Trump: these people are obviously cunning at something, but running a state or country in accordance with the law is not among their skillsets.
At the high end, Dunning-Krueger refers to the tendency of highly competent people to judge their skills harshly. These people do know what they don't know. They know that, within their own sphere of expertise, there is so much more to learn than what they themselves can ever know. When encountering another expert, the other may exhibit some non-overlapping knowledge, leading the first to conclude that his body of knowledge smaller than the other's, and by extension smaller than all others. When encountering another practitioner, they may look at what the other person has accomplished and judge their own accomplishments as paltry and unworthy.
The latter is popularly called Imposter Syndrome. It comes with the consequent anxiety that your peers will someday find out how little you know and laugh you out of your profession. Or your manager will someday figure out how little you actually do all day and fire you.
As a software developer who's far too aware that there's so much more to computer programming and computer science than I can ever learn in my lifetime, I suffer from this anxiety a lot. Not as much as I used to. I've started to realize that, with contributions to be found in several major pieces of open source software (including four lines in Apache which mean that you, yes you, no matter who you are, no matter what device you used, if you were on the Internet today, you ran code I wrote. Three billion people every freakin' day run code I wrote), and a deeper knowledge of Javascript and Python than most programmers will ever bother, I'm not actually too bad at this stuff. I have an entire bookshelf of books on how to write software, so overflowing there's a stack on the floor, not to mention the 90+ PDFs waiting for me to read.
The thing is, I'm also a writer. I don't particularly write for money, but I enjoy writing a lot, and I've written a few million words just for the pleasure of telling stories, mostly science fiction, mostly romantic and sexy, just because I like to. And I've garnered a lot of fans over the years, many of whom put money in the tip jar. With a half-dozen novels and a 300+ episode space opera generating a small but real income, I've come to appreciate that I can tell a good story. It just takes a lot of work, and an appreciation of the English language. I have another entire bookshelf of "how to write" books, some of which actually helped, and I love to sit with other writers and talk craft, and they actually recognize that I'm one of them.
I like to cook. I don't do it professionally, but I've never poisoned anyone and the general consensus is that I'm pretty good at it. I have yet another entire bookshelf* of cookbooks that intimidate the hell out of me, like the one on Indian cooking, and the book on breadmaking, and the book on chocolates. But the two books of Recipes from the New York Times are regular go-to books for what to took, I often make recipes I just find on the web: I made Korean Sticky Chicken last night and my only regret was going light on the gochujang (a smoky fermented Korean hot sauce) since the younger kid is a wimp when it comes to spicy foods, but otherwise it came out very tasty and delicious, along with stir-fried vegetables and sticky rice.
And this is where my Imposter Syndrome kicks in hard: I can't possibly be highly competent in three wildly different fields, can I? I start to panic: What am I doing wrong? What don't I know that I'm supposed to know? What nefarious reasons to people have for telling me I'm pretty good at these things?
I'm never going to be a Richard Feynman or Julia Child or Claude Shannon, all of whom were extremely competent in multiple fields. I'm just not a person who can sit still. Not even at fifty years of age. I guess there have to be a lot of people like me— I have a friend who's wildly skilled programmer, writer, and motorcycle mechanic, and another who's wickedly skilled at programming and a world-class historian and a cook to boot. And we all have Imposter Syndrome.
*(I'm starting to see a theme here I've never noticed before: when I'm fairly good at something, I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to it, frequently more than one. On the other hand, I have an entire bookshelf on how to draw and paint, and I'm a terrible illustrator mostly due to a lack of time to practice the basics. Whether or not the entire bookshelf of sex manuals has been helpful I will leave for volunteers to find out.)
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