DanThornton

Tech, Geekery, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous

Imposter Syndrome Can Be Really Weird

By Leave a Comment

I’ve got some upcoming projects which will involve recording live streams and videos. And it’s immediately made me feel a little nervous about my presenting abilities, and the potential for it to all go wrong. Sometimes, imposter syndrome can be really weird in the way it crops up, and it’s noticeably different to nerves before doing something new or challenging.

I’m a writer and SEO who generally enjoys working behind the scenes. I don’t consider myself photogenic, and hate hearing the sound of my own voice. Having worked alongside TV and radio celebrities, I’ve seen how they ‘switch on’ when they’re on camera, or the mics are live. It’s completely outside my comfort zone, and obviously doomed to failure. I should let other people do it, or just give up on the idea if I can’t find anyone.

Except…

Imposter Syndrome can be really weird - Presenting the MCN Daily news show in 2007
Imposter Syndrome can be really weird, even when you’ve got previous experience

16 years ago, I ended up presenting a daily news show on Youtube for MCN, because we wanted to try it and no-one else was willing to volunteer. It was probably a bit early for an online daily video series in a niche area, and didn’t lead to a glamorous TV career, but the figures were OK for the time. And while I don’t think I was brilliant, I did improve over time – and no-one complained.

9 years ago, I had a very small, non-speaking part in a British indie film. And the actual cast included actors from Bond films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and a future Ted Lasso icon, among others.

Around 25 years ago, I’d host a university radio show for two hours each week. Not only did I overcome shyness, but also memorably an incident where I locked myself out of the studio on air after nipping out for a cigarette.

I’ve presented to small groups and large audiences at a variety of events, appeared on webcasts, and dabbled a bit in live streaming in the past. A fair bit of my sim racing has been broadcast online, and even featured on Men and Motors many years ago.

No-one has said anything particularly negative about any of it. Even the professionals have only ever offered constructive advice. I’ve also witnessed various people working on their craft as speakers and presenters, including some very close friends, and how they quickly evolved their skills.

And if it’s terrible, then by definition, no-one will ever see it.

Documenting past accomplishments is one of the recommended ways to tackle imposter syndrome, along with embracing your fears and moving forwards. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing.

Crawling out from under an email avalanche

By Leave a Comment

I’ve experienced some poor health recently which prevented me from working as much as normal, and even having a few full days away from computer and mobile screens. And while I’m now recovering and slowly crawling out from under an email avalanche, it’s made me reconsider a few things.

Crawling out from under an email avalanche: Photo by Yannik Mika on Unsplash
Crawling out from under an email avalanche: Photo by Yannik Mika on Unsplash

The first is that I’ve always been an information junkie. In the ‘old days’ when I discovered a hobby, I’d want to read every magazine available, whether that led to a pile of guitar magazines, or White Dwarf when I discovered Warhammer. And I’ve held onto many of them, despite very few actually being useful in the years since. Alongside a constantly expanding library of books.

In the modern world, that meant spending a lot of time reading blogs, newsletters, and social media. In the past, it would often spark a blog post, article, work project or an idea for the future. But at some point, I started reading much more than actually doing.

The replacement of Twitter by an increasingly useless propaganda machine, and the influx of AI generated posts and replies elsewhere has helped me cut down on social media, whether I wanted to or not. But the stress of seeing my email inboxes overflowing with often generic or irrelevant emails has made me realise I need to perform a similar cull on my subscriptions. The FOMO if I don’t see something, particularly when I’ve worked as a news journalist, has been slowly replaced by the knowledge I’m getting older, time is finite, and my collection of stuff ‘to look at when I have some spare time’ is covered in virtual dust and cobwebs.

In just a week or two, my email accounts can collect hundreds, or even thousands, of emails. And a very small percentage were from clients, or actually contained anything that was entertaining, useful, or actionable.

So it’s time to cull anything I’m not actually getting some value from.

The second is that my stress and frustration at not being able to work was eased by having some great and understanding clients. But not being able to actually create anything for either paid projects or my own sidelines soon became a massive issue.

Despite the best efforts of Generative AI, Google, and other factors, writing and working on new ideas and projects is what brings me joy. Whether that’s blogging here, creating a long and detailed guide for a client, or getting back to contributing to Peterborough STEM Festival.

I’m not the only person wondering how the rise of Gen AI will impact mental health for humanity. Whether that’s AI chatbots, or in my case, finding it harder to justify taking the time to craft something from scratch and reach an audience when it will probably get buried by plagiarised autocomplete-generated cobblers in search results, and demoted by the walled gardens of social media if I dare to link to it. Considering human creativity dates back 45,000 to 64,000 years with cave paintings, the urge to create and share art, stories, music etc isn’t going to disappear from human nature just because someone can replicate it with a couple of lines of prompts. All the talk around AI tends to focus on the output and whether it can match humans in quality, not questioning why we want to replace something that benefits our mental health, thought processes, and understanding of the world with a tool which mainly rewards the same rich tech oligarchs who already exploited the web.

And lastly, I’ve been inspired to think about how I want to spend the next decades of my life, and how to make them as good as possible in terms of both work and personal time. How can I do more of what I enjoy, even if it means finding alternative routes to reach people who still want human content or connections. What can I do to be more proactive in ensuring my health is as good as possible, and spend my time with friends and family more meaningfully. And how to invest my love of researching and discovering new information and knowledge more productively than clearing out hundreds of emails, of which only a small percentage bring me joy, entertainment or worthwhile knowledge.

What I read, heard, watched and played: March 2024

By Leave a Comment

It’s been a bit of a strange month. My home entertainment consumption has been significantly reduced due to work and family commitments. But days out did increase a little, especially as the weather has finally started to improve in the UK.

Mostly we’ve been walking more around the local area, but there were two motorsport-related events. A long time ago, I was lucky enough to get a BMW M4 Master driving experience as a birthday present, but hadn’t been able to redeem it for various reasons. With the expiry date fast approaching, I quickly got it booked, but couldn’t grab any photos as I had to do the trip to Donington Park on my own. But I can confirm it was an awesome way to spend an evening, and I learned a lot.

But it also included two free tickets to a Category D event at any Motorsport Vision circuit, so before that, my son and I visited Snetterton for the No Limits Racing season opening club race. It’s one of the few UK tracks I’ve never visited for some reason, and I only occasionaly get along to any club races now, but it’s a great way to not only see enthusiastic racing for much less than big series would cost, but you also get to wander through the paddock and chat to everyone, and the queue for the burger van is a lot shorter (although a decent number of people were certainly in attendance).

What I read, heard, watched and played: March 2024
What I read, heard, watched and played: March 2024

And because it wasn’t a massive stressful event, and each class raced multiple times, there was no pressure to grab the best viewing spot for a specific race. So we could just wander round and have a nice relaxing day out, which was great.

Books

I’ve really enjoyed the Slow Horses series on Apple TV, so I picked up the first book from a charity shop. And it was surprisingly to see how much appeared to have been directly translated onto the screen, although there are a couple of significant plot differences.

I suspect this is now another series of books I’ll continue to accumulate over time. Even if it’s impossible to read anything regarding Jackson Lamb without picturing Gary Oldman.

And having finished that, I’ve now started Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which is rooted in 1990s tech and gaming culture, so immediately brought back my own memories of the time.

So far it’s been a really enjoyable story of two people living through the period, and the tech backdrop does remind me a little of the excellent Halt and Catch Fire series fictionalising the computer boom of the 1980s.

TV and Film

A fairly quiet month as I tried to keep up with the new motorsport season in F1, MotoGP and World Superbikes. And while I have an enduring fascination with American professional wrestling, from the athleticism and fandom of pre-determined sports entertainment, to the promo techniques and storyline development, I’ve been finding it harder to make time to keep up with AEW.

I did finally watch The Terminal List, a serious drama series starring Chris Pratt as a Navy SEAL caught up in a conspiracy.

It was decent enough, although the constant dry seriousness did make it harder to connect with the characters. There’s an interesting comparison to be had with the Jack Ryan series on Amazon starring John Krasinski, given that both leads originally ‘broke out’ in hugely popular TV comedies.

Personally, I preferred Jack Ryan and Reacher as the main cast were much more fleshed out, even just in the first series of each show.

And as my son has long been fascinated by Japan, martial arts, and other cultural references, I thought it was finally ready to experience Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Directed by Jim Jarmusch, mixing Japanese samurai philosophy with Italian-American gangsters and featuring a hip-hop soundtrack as a homage to the 1967 French film Le Samourai, it’s one of my favourite films of all time.

I thought it might be obvious to my son, but I still had to point out that there’s a copy of the Hagakure near his bed, and the name of my early-2000s blog, and now my business, is The Way of the Web.

I also started watching Shogun this month, based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell, which itself is loosely set around the real history of Will Adams, who was born in Gillingham, part of the Medway Towns where I grew up (like many families in the area, my own ancestry is tied into the dockyard, seafaring and exploration, including local fishermen, a member of Franklin’s lost expedition (HMS Erebus and Terror), and two members of Stanley’s central African expedition).

Music

I haven’t had time to check out much in the way of new music, or to really delve into any back catalogues of note. Which is disapointing, and will hopefully change in April.

Videogames

With limited time, I’ve had to restrict myself to playing existing titles. My main interest has been World War 2 mil-sim light Hell Let Loose, despite a frustrating amount of random game crashes. But I have slowly embraced more regularly taking on the roles of squad leader and commander, leading up to 50 players to victory or defeat.

I have also been spending more time improving my sim racing, and some time before and after my real-life BMW experience highlighted how close iRacing comes in replicating the BMW M4 and Donington Park. While it can’t simulate the physical weight transfer of a real car on a track when braking and cornering unless I spend a lot of motion on a motion rig, everything else was pretty much identical. To the point where it almost felt like I was driving the sim at times.