Imposter Syndrome

As I have recently said, the past couple of years had me thinking about my life, work (the stuff I do for money), work (the art I do that brings no money), my place and person, my identity. Stripped of outdoor pastimes, meaning the restaurants, the meet ups, work in in a workplace, overcrowded trails, planes, stores, movies, and everything else for a while; even with the cats and the Zoom, you are left with mostly just you. If you are Robinson Crusoe, you better love who you are and where you are because Netflix gets stale fast.

So I started to turn a questioning inward and began a series of images to pull myself out of a hole of stunted creativity during the pandemic. I also started seeing a lot of identity-driven work and I realized that every other artist and their pet monkey were doing the exact same thing – which was good. Introspection is good; the unexamined life and all that. But sort of bad too. The series I started about identity was suddenly stale before it was even partly done. Nonetheless, the work I have put in has threads I still want to pull on.

Let’s not talk about identity then. It sounds like something I just discovered I possessed. I’ve spent an obsessive-compulsive lifetime figuring out the scope of who I am. But where I am in this movement through time is perhaps a better direction.

I can say that on balance, I like who I am; more so as I get older. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t spent years with the inner voice of a superego that will not shut up. For all of my achievements, education, friends, love, and validation, part of me is unconvinced that I am not a monster, an imposter always about to be exposed. So let’s talk visually about how that feels.

Actually, visual might be the only way I can describe the distortion in my brain. Maybe with music? The music of my internal life is generally pretty standard (even with songs like Fish Heads or Detachable Penis on the soundtrack). But from time to time, an atonal noise gets turned up and Every Other Person in the World is nicer, taller, smarter, prettier, thinner, more interesting, more talented, and probably even a better cook. I don’t understand why anyone one would like me, let alone love me. It’s only a matter of time before the truth of how much I lack is revealed.

But that isn’t true. Really.

There is a normal melody in there where I’m not the flip side, not better, just ordinary. People like me for who and what I am. I am loved. The trick is to find that melody and focus on it until the noise fades away. This might explain why I am not a fan of noodling experimental jazz (probably not, but it makes a good story). And over the years, I’ve gotten better at dampening the negative voice.

That is part of my identity. But I don’t want to focus on just a push-pin point on the map. I want a wider view, a long sequence of DNA. And that is a much more slippery thing to get my hands on.

Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads,
Fish heads, fish heads, Eat them up, YUM!

Seriously. Barnes and Barnes. Look it up.