I want to touch on this idea of imposter syndrome that so many of us experience. It's an interesting word, because it's a pathology, an illness. It troubled me for a long time. I think when you said that there was a breakthrough for you when you started to see that, "Oh, I can make something for myself." I had a similar thought when I said, "Wait a minute. My imposter syndrome is actually my strength. I don't ever want to be comfortable in positions of power." The day that I'm comfortable in these large institutions, in these reified ivory towers, is my death. So I am an impostor, it was never meant for me. They didn't imagine me when they built these sites of power. May I always be an imposter. My imposter syndrome is my strength because it gives me vigilance, discernment, awareness, and fruitful doubt. My mother used to say, "You can tell everything by how they look at you." So I started to see this as my tool, my asset, and I don't want to lose that. I think the great work that we do is to turn an imposter syndrome that it started out as into a kind of immune system that protects us. I don't know if I feel at home anywhere. But I realized that the idea of the imposter is such a beautiful idea, the idea that someone can disguise and sneak in the back door with their head down and just do the threading work and then one day, put their head up and there's a fashion house or a book under their name.
Ocean Vuong in Cero Magazine