Mixed Feelings
Posted by Trixter on March 22, 2014
If the airlines gods shine on me next week, I will be at NVScene 2014 in San Jose Tuesday through Thursday. Co-located within the GPU Technology Conference, the entire event is looking to be the most concentrated collection of Very Intelligent People in regards to realtime computer graphics hardware and techniques.
I have mixed feelings about attending events like these, because I am so completely out of my league among these people. I understand no more than 10% of everything they present or create. I am looking forward to visiting and staying with friends, but my knowledge and accomplishments are dwarfed in orders of magnitude by every single other attendee. It’s very intimidating.
That’s all. No pithy observations or self-help advice in this post, sorry. My level of anxiety is high enough that, if I weren’t seeing some old friends there, I definitely wouldn’t be going. I have no business being there.
Oldskooler Ramblings 
danc256 said
It’s that last line that compels me to write this: “I have no business being there.” Who does belong there? Who decides if you belong there? You do.
I’m pretty sure if there was a minimum requirement of understanding for attendance it’d be clearly stated and checked at the door. There isn’t any. You’re the only one imposing this barrier. It’s highly likely there are people attending who know less than you, and they’re happy to be there and learn. Having been rather tightly wound a good part of my life, I know I have imposed similar constraints on myself.
Consider the first step towards improving your ‘qualification’ is to push this barrier away. You don’t think you belong there because you don’t think you belong there. Acknowledge the mental nag and then relish in an opportunity you have that many others don’t. Better living through caring less (about what others think of you). I’m anxious to hear how it goes.
Trixter said
Thanks for the kind words. Short summary: It went very, very well. I could tell a whole bunch of long stories, but the summary that is relevant to this specific post is: We are all fighting a hard battle, and it helped me to observe that. We are not all that different, ultimately.