« Plastic Parables | Main | Those Matrix Commercials for the Soda and the Beer... »

Let's Be Honest

Okay, let's be honest with ourselves. It must be some fundamental component of the modern human condition -- the fear (especially in our professional lives) that someone, somewhere, sometime will figure out our dirty little secret: I've been faking it. I'm a hack. I have no idea what I'm doing or why I get paid to do it. Someone else is better at it than me.

For most of us, this is a passing and irrational fear. It comes on quickly in a bout of night-tremors and sheet-sweat. Gone by morning, back to work, and the whole cycle starts again...

Unless you're Jayson Blair. Who, until recently, was a reporter for the NY Times. Reading Blair's tale, I feel sorry for him.

Not because he got caught, but because - for him - the fear was real. And rational. And founded in his own shortcomings. And that must feel about thirty times worse than the garden-variety anxiety that most of us carry around with ourselves every day. I wonder if Blair is relieved that the deception is over?

Comments

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on May 11, 2003 2:27 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Plastic Parables.

The next post in this blog is Those Matrix Commercials for the Soda and the Beer....

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Syndication

Subscribe to feed Subscribe to my feed
Powered by FeedBurner
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Powered by
Movable Type 3.33