(no subject)

[ysobel]

Someone on my flist linked to synecdochic's post on imposter syndrome from last year; and I found myself rereading the post, and all the comments, and thinking. A lot.

Which meant that I found myself with a lap full of kitty (she has discovered that I have a lap!) thinking, first, 'I did this,' and then, 'nah I just allowed the universe to happen this at me,' and then '...no. I did this. The universe gave me the opportunity, but I wasn't passive; I /did this/.'

It also meant that I saw a picture and had a (double) drabble jump directly into my head, and I showed my roommate the picture and summarized the drabble, and I don't remember the exact phrasing of the conversation we had but it was along the lines of me dismissing the picture-to-drabble leap as anything of consequence. And then stopping, and correcting myself to agree with what my roommate had said, because even though it was a perfectly obvious connection in my head, even though it didn't feel like effort, that didn't mean it wasn't something I did.

(It's hard, that line of thinking; it's a curse of growing up as a Gifted Kid, the paradox that things that happen natively don't "count" because there wasn't any apparent effort involved, and yet things that can't be done easily and perfectly aren't worth trying.)

...and it meant that I wrote the fic, and posted it, and didn't dither about how it omg wasn't good enough.

Comments

[niqaeli]

This is a little tangential, but it's relevant, I think. We'll see!

I figured out, awhile back, why I can accurately assess artistic skills and accomplishments, particularly visual arts but generally anything that qualifies as 'artistic', both other people's and my own, but I continue to run into a wall regarding my ability and accomplishments (and others') in computer user troubleshooting skills alike.

Growing up, I had an apprenticeship to a computer security expert, effectively. I was a curious child and my father would not dumb down his answers to my questions. I ended up with a fundamental grasp of security principles that most people are never taught -- but I never noticed that I was being taught them, because I was just a kid asking questions. It wasn't school or even lessons of any kind, just, "hey Dad, what's that about? Oh, huh. Kay!"

I then proceeded to make friends with a lot of people who are extremely good in the field and never noticed they were because I'd grown up with a father who was extremely good himself. Fish, water, yadda.

Now compare this to my experience of the arts: my mother is a dilettante of the arts. She's taken many classes in this, that, and the other. But most importantly, she got me formal education in the arts. Scattered across a number of disciplines, but nonetheless. I had drawing lessons, intermittently. And most importantly, I was exposed to a formal school of the arts -- the Appalachian Centre for the Arts. It's dedicated to preserving the folk arts of the Appalachias, particularly. Throughout my childhood and teeange years, I took many classes both with my mother and on my own in the textiles department and a few scattered other departments besides.

I learned from this experience that the arts are comprised of skills that can be broken down and taught and learned by anyone. And that they take effort and practice, as well, because the school actually did offer BFAs (and I can't recall if there were any MFA programs; there might have been, certainly) and many of the classes taught to the public were taught by students of the school itself, as well as by the teachers of the school.

Whereas, while I had an informal apprenticeship, I never had formal training and teaching in computing of any kind until I was fully 15 years old (my father taught me C and had me audit his Intro to Unix class; I think that is the extent of the formal CS/IT training I've ever had). And I never realised that I'd had what amounted to an apprenticeship. Nor did I realise the extent to which, due to that fundamental groundwork, I was an autodidact of significant talent in computer technology (for example: no, in fact, most teenagers do not teach themselves sufficient skill in webdesign and photoshop as to be semi-professional).

It wasn't until the past couple years that I've started to really grasp this, and getting a job in the field started to make clear to me just how deep some of this runs for me -- how unusual my basic mindset and approach towards computers are, and concomitantly how poorly I have assessed my own skill over the years.

Thing is: I still can't accurately assess technological skill, even realising what I do now. I just have come to realise the extent to which I can't; I have learned to accept others' assessments of my skill and have begun to internalise the concept that not only do I not suck, I'm competent.

So... I don't know, I think my point is: even if you never fully (re-)learn the skills of assessment, you may still learn the shape of your blind spots and how to work around them. And it's totally possible to learn to acknowledge your work and things you've done even if it still doesn't feel like you did a lot.

[not_a_sniglet]

OMG there's Ysa fic? Is there any way we can read?

Also, we've been meaning to ask, do you happen to have an archive of our own account? If so, and you'd want to poke at our one single fic :P (We're just getting into fandom as far as writing goes) we're beautyofgrey

Er...Hope we don't sound like a squeeing weirdo?

And OMG kitteh! *Pets*

[not_a_sniglet]

We also can't sleep, freaking storms so we're tried and wired...

Just wanted to add, we understand what you meant about the paradox of growing up a gifted child. We definitely get it as we did too. We sucked at math, but yes exactly. Just, we understand. We can't brain right now, but we might come back and leave a more verbose reply when we can properly brain.

[staranise]

Gifted-child syndrome sucks. Partly because I, at least as a child, always got told, "That's such good work!" and not "You worked so hard!" Which is why I didn't do my homework. I'd stare at them and go... you KNOW I know this! Why on earth should I demonstrate it to you thirty-six times?! Which turned into the mantra, 'my effort can suck as long as I produce good results. So when my effort sucked and my results sucked too, I was going to go read a fantasy novel instead, and no way in hell was I going to all that effort if it wasn't going to work out.