Outstanding

I ran into an acquaintance who was having a bout of self-doubt, and during our conversation, something occurred to me, but as is always the way of things, I wasn't really able to sort out my thoughts until after our talk was finished. Still it struck me as useful, and so I'm noting it here, as a way of saving it for later:

The problem, or danger, if you will, with one's Inner Critic aren't the lies it tells about the self, but the lies it tells about others. Imposter Syndrome tells you not only that you're a fraud, but that you're the only fraud; it hides other people's work, efforts and failures from you. And this is endemic to our society; I've lost count of the number of times that someone has publicly remarked that they felt alone in something, only to recall someone else making the same remark a year, a month or a even couple of days previously. It's a negative form of feeling special.

And perhaps that the thing about a need to feel special and unique; it doesn't always matter how one arrives at that status. Being especially bad makes one just as unique as being especially good. Being alone in one's faults sets one apart just as well as being alone in one's strengths.