Just how deluded am I?
This is a question I have asked myself more and more often, since I started writing fiction. After all, it isn’t the easiest ambition in the world, to want to write and publish a crime novel. And even as someone who reads quite widely, and has been known to throw other writers’ books across the room if they fail to please, it is surprisingly difficult to assess the quality of one’s own work. From time to time, I lie awake in the middle of the night wondering if I’m like one of those sad tone deaf types who thinks they are going to wow Simon Cowell in Britain’s Got Talent. 
So I was fascinated by this article in the New York Times about the Dunning Kruger effect.
It refers to a study about the difficulties of recognising one’s own incompetence. The example they give is rather amusing – of some poor bank robber who was caught rather easily because he made no attempt to cover up his identity from the CCTV cameras. Except, it turns out he did make an attempt. He rubbed lemon juice on his face – under the mistaken impression that would make him invisible to the cameras.
There are all kinds of areas in life where we can see this effect at work, of course. Not just on television talent shows. Consider all the people who are convinced they are good drivers – and how many of them actually are. I don’t think it’s only Dilbert who has a boss who lacks insight into his own level of competence – but I could be wrong. Some years ago I remember talking to a friend at University and bemoaning my lack of knowedge about Mathematics – and then falling into a heap laughing as he answered, a little boastfully, “Oh that’s not a problem for me, I know all about maths.”
Maybe a little humility isn’t such a bad thing. It’s often said that the more one knows about something, the more one realises how much is still unknown. I always thought that Donald Rumsfeld quote was perfectly reasonable, if somehwat infuriating to most people who, after all, want certainty more than honesty - “as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
So perhaps I should feel somewhat reassured, because at least I know I still have plenty to learn.
Phew… Just moderately deluded then. Although I do still have sleepless nights worrying about those unknown unknowns…
About Ann GodridgeAnn Godridge has just completed her first crime novel, The Mermaid's Shroud, and has started work on the sequel. Her story the Tree of Knowledge was shortlisted for the Asham Award. She writes about writing and sometimes about textile arts at her blogStraw into Gold. You can find out more about her here - About Ann G.
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All that jazz – All in A Day
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I've always thought that the day I stop learning is the day I should be euthanised as a doo-lally horse. Learning is what keeps us going: knowing that there's more to learn just around the corner.
People who pontificate about how much they know tend to be old farts who have no further incentive to learn, which strikes me as very sad. No-one can stop learning, unless you manage to prevent the world from turning and stop time dead in its tracks, which case there would be no point in going on.
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
I am always gobsmacked by those spam emails that offer a master's degree without having to work for it. That's what I want to do it for, I yell at the screen. It's the work that interests me, not the qualification.