I know that it exists in other contexts and professions, but imposter syndrome looms very large inside academia. Briefly, imposter syndrome is the idea that despite being well qualified for something, at any moment people will find out that you are, in fact, terrible.

There has been a lot written on imposter syndrome in academia, but I think one of the main causes of this is how the whole profession is set up—at least in the humanities. While scientists are not immune to imposter syndrome, researchers in STEM fields can find some cover in objectivity; they have physical research, reproducible experiments, and tangible evidence. For the humanities scholar, thinking is the research, reading is the experiment, and quotations are the evidence. To prove our conclusions about books or culture, we rely on both on the actual materials we’re commenting on and what that other scholars have already said about those or similar materials. We fundamentally construct the validation for our research by using the literal words of other people. In so doing, we internalize this sense that our own thoughts and our own words are not enough.

A PhD dissertation in the humanities is not so much a testament to the quality of an individual’s ideas as it is an exercise in compiling and organizing mountains of material with the express goal of convincing a small committee that you know things. As a result, no matter how much someone publishes, there’s often this little demon lurking between your ears saying, You don’t really know this stuff, and as soon as someone asks you a question they’re going to know and you’re going to be ruined.

The dirty secret of academia is that universities are full of people who are required to act like they are the smartest person in the room but who are, almost universally, fundamentally insecure.

It’s funny to me that in a profession that is so largely mental and is fundamentally constructed to mess with your head I would be so drawn to golf. While it doesn’t exactly have an issue with imposter syndrome, golf seems fundamentally constructed to make you question your ability. Bobby Jones famously said (the exact quote seems to vary) “golf is played on a five-inch course, the space between your ears.” That five-inch rule is as applicable to academia as it is to golf.

I have been thinking about this recently as I return to my own research and committing myself to writing this book that I need/want to write. The broad idea that I have for this book—that the coast has been more significant for the development of American literary culture than people have recognized—is something that I’ve been writing about for a long time. I’ve published in some of the top journals in my field, and by most measures I am an expert in this little niche corner of academia. But when I sit down to write, or even to plan out how to write, I feel like I don’t know near enough to actually do this. I’m getting lost on that five-inch course. As a writer I feel like I have, to extend the metaphor, lost my swing.

Naturally—because as Ishmael says in Moby-Dick, “Nothing exists in itself”—my struggles with the mental side of academia have found an unwelcome analogue in my golf game. Lately I have had this feeling creep in that I am entirely uncomfortable standing over a golf ball. I don’t know where the ball is supposed to be in my stance. Sometimes out of nowhere I feel entirely lost looking at a 80-yard wedge from the middle of the fairway, and I just know that the ball isn’t making it on the green.

This isn’t unique to me. Just the other day I was at the driving range and ran into a friend who said he had been playing the best golf of his life lately. He had shot multiple rounds in a row in the 70s, and then all of a sudden it disappeared; his last round was an 87. There he was, on the range trying to find that lost something, poofing shot after shot heavy and trailing off to the right, each shot followed by exasperation.

Then, the pure click of a well struck ball: There it is. Another: Okay, yeah. And another: I figured it out. I’M BACK.

Three shots. Sometimes that’s all it takes to trick us into thinking we aren’t imposters. Because the truth is, there is no such thing as imposter syndrome. We’re all imposters, and we’re all just trying to figure out a way to make us believe that we aren’t. Sometimes it takes writing a book to make you feel like you belong for a little while. Sometimes it takes three pure shots on a driving range.

But then, you have to go to the course.