It seems Kurt Cobain had a touch of the “Impostor Syndrome” that has been semi-popular for people to yak about on social media o’er the last few years, and it was possibly an influence on the verbiage of his suicide note.*  It probably didn’t help that a number of his famous tunes were well-known for similarity to other people’s works, but anybody who can appreciate the kind of art our late lamented fella was laying down would agree that he did it well.  No fakin’.

Something I noticed at that wikipedia link above is that impostor syndrome is not officially recognized by the authorities on psychology, tho not specifically refuted either.  They just haven’t considered it of sufficient life impact to be considered a disorder, or diagnostic enough to be considered a symptom.  Officially.  It does seem to be a real thing, at least, that many people who are smart cool successful etc. feel they are faking it and feel likely to be discovered.  At that point, they must pull a Milli Vanilli and be done with the world.  As Freddie said, don’t do that.

Now to be very clear, I do not have impostor syndrome at all.  I am quite certain that I rule ass, altho I recognize that I am prone to speaking thoughtlessly and embarrassing myself, and am not a genius of the classic conception.  I am a very cool comrade, but sometimes I do feel kinda fake.  Particularly when I’m hustling for meaning.  My day in the life posts, my bird posts both tend to include some attempt at folksy profundity, like, ain’t that just the way?, or to draw connections Connections-style, which may be entirely unjustified, specious, or frivolous.

I’m probably being the most honest on those when I am being the most frivolous.  When I’m hinting around something deep, or spelling that out more bluntly, how legit is that?  My husband is more of a real artist about this stuff (probably no coincidence he has similar health problems to Cobain), gravitating to subjects he cannot express directly, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.  Art as a struggle.  I just get an idea, or work up an idea, and spit it out.  Blop.  Soup’s on.

I have said many many times that words are bullshit, that everything in our lives and in existence itself has a reality that words can’t even begin to approximate.  As Depeche Mode said, “feelings are intense; words are trivial.”  But where does that leave me, as a person who devotes an inordinate amount of their time to writing?

I once had a teenager tell me that the cool kids “don’t care,” specifically about learning or social order in the school environment, but I believe her ass was very mistaken.  The genuinely cool kids are the ones who know everything is bullshit, so they don’t bother talking about it, because what’s the point?  Not in a thought-terminating cliché or cruel way, just that life isn’t about whatever words we want to layer on it, and none of this is necessarily going anywhere.  That kinda stuff.  I’ve known people like this, loved a few of them.

So by this metric, where yakkin’ about stuff inherently makes you less real, more of an uptight square than the cool guy what doesn’t talk much, is everyone who writes inherently uncool?  No, cool people can make words happen in a conversation or in writing, but the approach to the words is different.  They would effortlessly say only what needs to be said, and if you understand it, that’s the extent to which you are cool, and if you didn’t, not their problem.  That’s them and here’s me, making words for the sake of words.  Writers are not inherently uncool, but I surely am.

OK, that’s me talking out my ass on a sultry summer night.  Did I not say earlier in this post that I am very cool?  I am.  Very cool.  Like, I read some of the shit Cat Valente blogs on a bottle of wine, and I win.  Take that, nerds.  RIP to impostor syndrome sufferers but I’m different.  Most of the time.  I’m good.  I’m good.

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*As I researched the points of this first paragraph I became convinced it doesn’t hold up.  Not quite true; his death and that letter had more to do with anhedonia and old school depression.  I leave it in because it shows my line of thought as I was composing.  Wild that his note mentioned Freddie Mercury and I randomly mentioned him in the article before I went back and did the reading.  Ah, what a dismal thing to be pondering.