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Abstract

ivialization</h1>Ben talks to a colleague who says that she too experiences pangs of extreme doubt. “It’s just impostor syndrome,” Ben tells her. Her face lights up as the vague collection of feelings she experiences suddenly gets a name. No longer does she need to wonder if there’s something wrong with her.Ben probes further. Does she feel it just like he does? More concepts fill the air between them, but Ben doesn’t get any wiser, though he does relax a bit in the knowledge that he’s not alone.“Do you think actual impostors feel impostor syndrome?” he asks his colleague. They both laugh at the bad joke. He returns to his desk, and the analysis he can’t figure out a bit lighter than before.By naming the vague and the indefinite, we find a form of certainty, even though a concept can never capture its object. By making fun of it, we remove its importance. In other words, maybe it’s good to trivialize the world with just a word.<h1 id="34af">Giving Concepts Power</h1>Ben notices that he’s not so insecure anymore. By naming his feelings, and finding that others experience the same, he senses that ‘impostor syndrome’ is just that. A concept that can be understood and ignored, to a certain extent.But if Ben and his colleague experiences impostor syndrome, surely others must too? What if there are millions out there who feel the crushing weight of soon being discovered as frauds? Suicide has been on the increase lately. Perhaps he can do some good in the world?Ben embarks on a mission to educate the ignorant masses that what they’re feeling is just impostor syndrome. Nothing to worry about. We all feel it. He campaigns academic institutions to take the concept seriously; he writes essays about it, even holds a TED talk on the subject.Under one of his videos, Ben reads one day, “It’s just impostor syndrome, dude. Chill.”“It’s not just impostor syndrome,” Ben replies. “Millions suffer because of it!”Ben and the anonymous stranger battle it out in the comment field before it peters out in a reductio ad Hitlerum and Ben logs off in anger.While a little online argument is just bytes of information over the wires, wars have been fought over concepts. By naming the world, we also define it and say it is like this and not that. But without ever knowing if we refer to the same experience, the same phenomenon, who is right?There’s an inherent risk in concept-making: we quickly identify with them. And when our concepts are under threat, we feel as if we are under threat. By giving concepts power and importance, we lift them up from being just a reference to a

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spects of the world itself.<h1 id="3da1">The Beauty Of Conceptualization</h1>Ben, now known as The Impostor, writes a book about impostor syndrome. He analyzes it with all the tools in the garden shed: prevalence statistics, psychometrics, philosophical deconstruction, and even throws in a mathematical model. The book receives international acclaim.From a mere feeling, Ben’s journey has produced a work of art. Students everywhere read his work as an obligatory self-help book before the exam period. Teachers use his work to make sure their pupils do not succumb to insecurity. Academics reference his work when trying to understand all the other concepts they battle with.Ben, on the other hand, sits on a fancy couch, in his new fancy apartment in the fancy part of town, and waits… waits for it all to come tumbling down.As ironic as the end of this story is, it’s not without beauty. Ben, back to where he started, has a new ‘ability’. From all he has learned about impostor syndrome, it’s now both just impostor syndrome, but also a very rich and detailed thing in the world. Both a mere concept and as real as it gets.In the beginning, slumped over his desk late in the evening, impostor syndrome was a huge ominous feeling pushing down on him. Now, he sees the facets, the internal dynamics, the tiny differences between this kind of impostor syndrome and that kind of impostor syndrome.It reminds him of the clouds he loved watching when young. His father had stripped them of their magic, but he had given something else: depth. Clouds were less magical but were more than just clouds. They were water droplets, wind currents, temperature, particles, and of course, clouds.<h1 id="8be9">Epilogue</h1>By naming the world, we make it less than it is, trivializes it, and thus easier to deal with. However, conceptualization takes away the magic and amazement from our naïve and childlike experience. Concepts can also become ‘real’ in their own right, amassing power behind them equal to people's beliefs and level of identification.By carefully balancing the above, we can use concepts to produce works of art or engineering, foster cooperation and reduce suffering, and deepen our experience of the world.Ben died an ‘impostor’, but he died with the understanding that the power his impostor syndrome held over him was only as much as he gave it. However, after writing a book about the concept, he had given it a lot.In his final interview, a journalist had asked Ben if he still felt like an impostor after all these years. Ben had of course answered (keeping his fans in mind):No!</article></body>

How Words Can Change The Way We View The World

Concepts Collapse The Indefinite Into The Definite

Prologue

Ben is a 40-year-old scientist. He has published some papers that were not immediately ignored, has a nice partner, owns a house, and is by all accounts living a rather envious life.

But Ben feels he isn’t good enough, and that one day they would all figure out how useless he really is. Then he’d be fired and forced into a life he’d find utterly boring.

“It’s just impostor syndrome,” a friend said after Ben had lamented his feelings over a cold beer.

“It’s just impostor syndrome,” his friend repeated. “Just forget about it.”

But it isn’t just impostor syndrome.

Concepts Reduce The Irreducible

A word or a concept collapses something indefinite into concrete metaphysical reality. Take ‘fun’. What is it? We all know what ‘fun’ is, but try to pinpoint the concept and you’re nowhere close to the real deal.

Likewise, ‘impostor syndrome’ covers a whole slew of other concepts like ‘insecurity’, ‘fear’, ‘stress’, ‘inferiority’, and so on. Not only that, it is associated with urges like quitting your job, hiding, or apathy.

But when Ben feels all these feelings and urges, and even behaves accordingly, it’s an injustice to label them as just ‘impostor syndrome’.

Concepts Remove The Magic

When Ben was young, he loved staring at the clouds floating serenely across the blue roof over all things. He didn’t know what they were, only that they were utterly fascinating in how they morphed and changed into objects he knew, like dogs, and objects that defied knowledge.

Then his father would say, “they’re just clouds, patches of air that are more humid than the air around them.”

Ben was at first amazed that patches of air with high humidity could look like dogs, but as he grew older, clouds eventually became just clouds.

Thus, concepts take away the magic of naivety. Look at the world through the eyes of a child, some say, and see it in all its magical splendor! Some have called this naïve looking for Zen mind (beginner's mind).

But trivializing ‘impostor syndrome’ doesn’t make it go away.

The Benefit Of Trivialization

Ben talks to a colleague who says that she too experiences pangs of extreme doubt. “It’s just impostor syndrome,” Ben tells her. Her face lights up as the vague collection of feelings she experiences suddenly gets a name. No longer does she need to wonder if there’s something wrong with her.

Ben probes further. Does she feel it just like he does? More concepts fill the air between them, but Ben doesn’t get any wiser, though he does relax a bit in the knowledge that he’s not alone.

“Do you think actual impostors feel impostor syndrome?” he asks his colleague. They both laugh at the bad joke. He returns to his desk, and the analysis he can’t figure out a bit lighter than before.

By naming the vague and the indefinite, we find a form of certainty, even though a concept can never capture its object. By making fun of it, we remove its importance. In other words, maybe it’s good to trivialize the world with just a word.

Giving Concepts Power

Ben notices that he’s not so insecure anymore. By naming his feelings, and finding that others experience the same, he senses that ‘impostor syndrome’ is just that. A concept that can be understood and ignored, to a certain extent.

But if Ben and his colleague experiences impostor syndrome, surely others must too? What if there are millions out there who feel the crushing weight of soon being discovered as frauds? Suicide has been on the increase lately. Perhaps he can do some good in the world?

Ben embarks on a mission to educate the ignorant masses that what they’re feeling is just impostor syndrome. Nothing to worry about. We all feel it. He campaigns academic institutions to take the concept seriously; he writes essays about it, even holds a TED talk on the subject.

Under one of his videos, Ben reads one day, “It’s just impostor syndrome, dude. Chill.”

“It’s not just impostor syndrome,” Ben replies. “Millions suffer because of it!”

Ben and the anonymous stranger battle it out in the comment field before it peters out in a reductio ad Hitlerum and Ben logs off in anger.

While a little online argument is just bytes of information over the wires, wars have been fought over concepts. By naming the world, we also define it and say it is like this and not that. But without ever knowing if we refer to the same experience, the same phenomenon, who is right?

There’s an inherent risk in concept-making: we quickly identify with them. And when our concepts are under threat, we feel as if we are under threat. By giving concepts power and importance, we lift them up from being just a reference to aspects of the world itself.

The Beauty Of Conceptualization

Ben, now known as The Impostor, writes a book about impostor syndrome. He analyzes it with all the tools in the garden shed: prevalence statistics, psychometrics, philosophical deconstruction, and even throws in a mathematical model. The book receives international acclaim.

From a mere feeling, Ben’s journey has produced a work of art. Students everywhere read his work as an obligatory self-help book before the exam period. Teachers use his work to make sure their pupils do not succumb to insecurity. Academics reference his work when trying to understand all the other concepts they battle with.

Ben, on the other hand, sits on a fancy couch, in his new fancy apartment in the fancy part of town, and waits… waits for it all to come tumbling down.

As ironic as the end of this story is, it’s not without beauty. Ben, back to where he started, has a new ‘ability’. From all he has learned about impostor syndrome, it’s now both just impostor syndrome, but also a very rich and detailed thing in the world. Both a mere concept and as real as it gets.

In the beginning, slumped over his desk late in the evening, impostor syndrome was a huge ominous feeling pushing down on him. Now, he sees the facets, the internal dynamics, the tiny differences between this kind of impostor syndrome and that kind of impostor syndrome.

It reminds him of the clouds he loved watching when young. His father had stripped them of their magic, but he had given something else: depth. Clouds were less magical but were more than just clouds. They were water droplets, wind currents, temperature, particles, and of course, clouds.

Epilogue

By naming the world, we make it less than it is, trivializes it, and thus easier to deal with. However, conceptualization takes away the magic and amazement from our naïve and childlike experience. Concepts can also become ‘real’ in their own right, amassing power behind them equal to people's beliefs and level of identification.

By carefully balancing the above, we can use concepts to produce works of art or engineering, foster cooperation and reduce suffering, and deepen our experience of the world.

Ben died an ‘impostor’, but he died with the understanding that the power his impostor syndrome held over him was only as much as he gave it. However, after writing a book about the concept, he had given it a lot.

In his final interview, a journalist had asked Ben if he still felt like an impostor after all these years. Ben had of course answered (keeping his fans in mind):

No!