welcome !

a thought essay on how what isn’t said weighs just as much as what is said.

impression by innuendo.

There’s this phenomenon; when a person is described and certain features are emphasised, we immediately conclude that they must be lacking in other features. For example, if we’re told that they are friendly, we infer that they are less competent. If we’re told that they are competent, we infer that they are not friendly.

It’s led me to wonder whether we think about ourselves the same way. When complimented on a certain aspect, do I also conclude that I’m lacking in another aspect based on the compliment? And how has that affected me? Do I act in ways that reinforce that idea; that I’m good at one thing (that I’ve been explicitly told) and not good at another thing (that I’ve unconsciously inferred about myself).

An immediate example that comes to mind is the classic case of being good at English and bad at Maths. Or being good at Maths and bad at English. The case where a child being competent at both was a rarity. At least from my experience people would always classify themselves as one or the other. Maybe being told your good at English carries an implication (that is not intended) that you are lacking in other areas that english does not overlap with (aka maths). And maybe that has more of an impact on the child’s mathematical ability rather than their innate adeptness at it. Just a thought.

It also feels dangerous to be good at multiple things. Good at English AND Maths? Illegal. We think that being good at one aspect must have a tradeoff in another area. And with no tradeoff, you are simply not human. But why do we restrict ourselves like that. It feels safer, but at what cost?

other things left unsaid

On Writer’s Block

Something didn’t sit right with me for some of the blogs I had been writing. And it was hard to pinpoint. Ironically, it all comes down to why I named this blog ‘from the heart’. It used to feel like I sat down and tried to pull things out of my brain. Which has its place. But initially everything I wrote came from experiencing life. Simply experiencing life and putting two random pieces together could provide another perspective, one that someone else, looking at the same two pieces, would come to a different conclusion or deem them not related at all. 

On Innovation

Innovation. When someone breaks the previous limit, at the time it seems inconceivable that there is a future evolution that can occur. For example, when Roger Bannister broke the world record 4 minute mile by running 3 minutes, fifty nine and four tenths of a second it seemed that that was it. This 4 minute barrier had held its ground for decades. Surely, surely no one can run faster than that. But then only a year later, three runners broke the 4 minute barrier in the same race. The previous record became a ceiling. And the new record will become the next ceiling. What people find expansive now, people will find limiting in future.

On Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome. Another thing left unsaid. But it’s felt. I honestly think as crappy as impostor syndrome feels, it’s a sign of growth. It sounds like ‘am I really sure I should be here? is this too good for me?’. And when would those questions come up? When you’re in a situation where you’re required to feel deserving, or feel a sense of belonging to a situation. I think impostor syndrome comes with anything that is not familiar. And it’s simply another irrational survival reaction for safety. If something isn’ familiar, we feel uncomfortable - non-familiarity implies lack of safety. I like to think of impostor syndrome as a temporary growing pain.

There’s also the situation where we chase indicators of something we fundamentally feel we don’t have or belong to. Let’s take luxury clothing or products for example. What does it represent? Beyond luxury; it represents refinement, wealth, security, an appreciation for beauty, a symbol of class and status. And when people see you + the brand; they associate the two together - which is pleasing for us. Who doesn’t want to be seen in that light? But the issue comes in when we feel we cannot be seen that way without the brand; we feel like an impostor wearing fake luxury, it feels like we’re missing something that everyone has who wears these brands.

And that kind of impostor syndrome is not a growing pain. It’s a longing to be someone that you can only find in things you associate yourself with because you don’t feel it yourself. And that can become an addiction; an addiction to shopping certain brands, certain products, an addiction to associating yourself with certain people not for who they are but for the characteristics you want to be associated with, an addiction to pursuing achievements that imply certain characteristics about who you are. And even if you found everything to create the perfect image of yourself, you’d still feel like an impostor. And I feel like we’ve all had these moments, not as extreme as I described it but the feeling of masquerading behind all these things so that people piece together your ‘character’ or who you want to come off to be without really knowing you. It occurs when we want the most trendy piece of clothing, a certain car etc. Who is the kind of person that (let’s just say) wears luxury brands? Instead of chasing the natural byproduct of the person, what would it be like to try and be that person? And becoming that person is more rewarding than buying the luxury brands. We get marketed celebrites wearing perfume. And we compete to buy the perfume, not realising that what we really desire is to be the celebrity not just have the perfume.

 

things I said

takeaway mantras:

• What people find expansive now, people will find limiting in future.
• I like to think of impostor syndrome as a temporary growing pain.
• Does being good in one area necessitate a tradeoff in another?
• And we compete to buy the perfume, not realising that what we really desire is to be the celebrity not just have the perfume.

 

from,

the heart <3