There’s this thing that happens when you make something paint a canvas, write a sentence, compose a chord, breathe life into something that didn’t exist before, and instead of pride, you feel... suspicion. Like you just stumbled upon this creation in a back alley and decided to take it home. You didn’t make it. You found it. You’re just holding onto it until the real artist comes to claim it.

That’s the Kafka Conundrum.

This syndrome is named, unofficially, after Franz Kafka, who once instructed his friend Max Brod to burn his unpublished works when he died. Burn it. All of it. As if centuries of human suffering didn’t need The Trial or The Metamorphosis, it was just a weird diary entry that got out of hand. Luckily, Brod ignored him (because, of course, the one time someone ignores a man’s dying wish, it saves literature). But the point is: Kafka thought he wasn’t good enough. That his writing wasn’t worthy.

And here we are, decades later, still spiraling in that same existential whirlpool of unworthiness.

This feeling of unworthiness and self-doubt is not just something that flickers for two minutes before vanishing into the background. No. It’s more like a spiraling vortex, a slow, maddening descent into a rabbit hole you never meant to fall into. At first, it’s just a flicker: “Was this even good?” But before you know it, you’re drowning in thoughts like “Maybe I’m a fraud,” “Maybe it was luck,” “Maybe I shouldn’t post this at all.” Even if people are being truthful with their compliments, it just feels like they are being polite, and once you're in that hole, logic doesn’t matter. Compliments bounce off like rubber bullets. Achievements blur into accidents. Even when others celebrate your work, you sit in the corner of your mind, picking it apart until nothing’s left but crumbs of what once felt like pride. You tell yourself, “It wasn’t me who did that,” as if some invisible hand swooped in, made art with your body, and left you to take undeserved credit.

It’s like being possessed by self-doubt, except you’re still painfully aware it’s you pulling yourself apart. You become your heckler, whispering insecurities into every quiet moment. And the worst part? You get good at hiding it. You smile, nod, say thank you, and bookmark every compliment like you’re collecting receipts you’ll never believe in.

There’s a strange shame in being proud of what you’ve made. As if taking credit is arrogance. As if joy must be earned through struggle, and even then, only whispered. So instead, you hand over your art with an awkward shrug, “It’s nothing really,” you say, even when it’s everything. Even when it’s your soul pressed between pages or pixels or paint.

And in a twisted way, it feels safer not to believe in yourself. Because if you do, and it turns out you were wrong, what then? It’s easier to stay small than risk believing you're capable of something big. Because if you let yourself own it, if you finally say, “Yes, I did that,” and someone disagrees? The crash would be deafening.

So you stay in the in-between. Half-proud, half-apologizing. Always almost.

Artists walk around with impostor syndrome like it's part of the dress code. You can have a solo exhibition in a gallery filled with strangers sipping wine and nodding thoughtfully at your work, and still, some part of you believes they’re in on a very elaborate joke. That your brushstroke was an accident. That your words were flukes. That someone else, someone better, someone real should be the one getting the applause.

And don’t even get me started on the awards. Oh, the agony of being praised. The sheer discomfort of hearing someone say “this moved me” when all you can think is, “I don’t even know where that came from. It wasn’t me.” Because sometimes the art flows through you, not from you.

But maybe that’s the paradox: real artists often don’t feel like artists. The ones who yell the loudest about their brilliance usually aren’t the ones doing the work worth yelling about. Maybe doubt is part of the process. Maybe it’s even necessary. Maybe questioning your worth is what keeps your ego in check and keeps you humble.

Still, wouldn’t it be nice just once to look at something you made and say, “Yeah. I did that. And it’s good.” Not in a loud, arrogant way. But in a quiet, head-tilted, half-smiling sort of way.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Because here’s the deal, no one tells you when you first pick up the pen or the brush or the camera: art is not a performance. It’s a translation. You're translating your mess, your heartbreak, your absurdly specific 2 a.m. thoughts into something slightly more presentable. It's not supposed to feel perfect. It’s supposed to feel real.

And maybe brace yourself, it’s even okay to feel proud.

But pride is weird when your inner monologue sounds like a bitter literary agent who hates your guts. You try to accept compliments and end up deflecting like a tennis pro: “Oh no, that piece? It’s just something I scribbled during a breakdown.” “Haha, glad you liked it. I was barely even trying.” “Honestly, I don’t even know how that happened. Maybe I blacked out?”

Why are we so obsessed with proving we’re not trying? Is effort cringe now? Is passion embarrassing?

We’ll spend a month pouring every ounce of ourselves into something, editing, reworking, throwing tantrums at our laptops, then post it online with a caption like, “idk lol.” Because heaven forbid someone thinks we care.

But you do care. That’s the secret. Even when you pretend not to. Even when you shrug and scoff and joke. You care so much that it makes your brain short-circuit. That’s what makes the work good. The fact that you keep showing up, even when you feel like a fraud, even when your brain tells you to give up and go become a barista (which, by the way, is also an art).

The Kafka Conundrum isn’t just about not feeling good enough. It’s about the fear that being truly seen will reveal all the cracks. And still, we risk it. We share our work. We sign our names (maybe). We whisper, “I made this,” even when it feels like someone else did.

And if Kafka can’t see the genius in his writing, maybe we can stop waiting for the moment when we finally feel worthy. Maybe that moment never comes. Maybe the point isn’t to feel worthy. Maybe the point is to make the thing anyway.

Even if you don’t think you deserve the credit.

Even if you feel like a glorified translator for your subconscious.

Let it flow. Someone out there might need it.

And you might too.

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