3 May 2022 4:16 pm
"The Fountainhead" has a nice description of a person with an impostor syndrome:FOS » 06 Feb 2022, 11:12 pm » wrote: ↑ i mean...thats the simplest explanation. they are actually imposters.
Howard, I'm a parasite. I've been a parasite all my life. You designed my best projects at
Stanton. You designed the first house I ever built. You designed the Cosmo-Slotnick Building.
I have fed on you and on all the men like you who lived before we were born. The men who
designed the Parthenon, the Gothic cathedrals, the first skyscrapers. If they hadn't existed, I
wouldn't have known how to put stone on stone. In the whole of my life, I haven't added a new
doorknob to what men have done before me. I have taken that which was not mine and given
nothing in return. I had nothing to give. This is not an act, Howard, and I'm very conscious of
what I'm saying. And I came here to ask you to save me again. If you wish to throw me out, do
it now."
Roark shook his head slowly, and moved one hand in silent permission to continue.
"I suppose you know that I'm finished as an architect. Oh, not actually finished, but near
enough. Others could go on like this for quite a few years, but I can't, because of what I’ve
been. Or was thought to have been. People don't forgive a man who's slipping. I must live up
to what they thought. I can do it only in the same way I've done everything else in my life. I
need a prestige I don't deserve for an achievement I didn't accomplish to save a name I
haven't earned the right to bear. I've been given a last chance. I know it’s my last chance. I
know I can't do it. I won't try to bring you a mess and ask you to correct it. I'm asking you to
design it and let me put my name on it.