The psychologist David Elkind published an interesting study in the mid 1970’s. Adolescents, he found, believe in an “imaginary audience.” Consider a 13 year old so embarrassed that they miss a week of class, positive that the entire school is thinking and murmuring about some tiny incident. Or a teenage girl who spends three hours in front of mirror each morning, like she’s about to go on stage. They do this because they’re convinced that their every move is being received with rapt attention by the rest of the world.

As strange as this behavior is, it’s all very normal. In fact, it’s an integral part of the development of self-consciousness. The child is becoming aware of their own powerful feelings about themselves and the newness of it often makes it difficult to discern where their thoughts end and other people’s begin. If all goes well, they grow into and realize that, hey, maybe everyone isn’t watching as closely as I thought.

But some psychologists have begun to notice that some people don’t come to this realization. They carry this delusion forward and never shake off the imaginary audience. Emotions that are supposed to peak in 8th grade, stays with them and becomes an enormous part of their identity and ultimately, their narcissism.

There are a lot of parallels between this and how people behave on the internet. Liveblogging. Lifecasting. Oversharing. Alter-egos. Fameballs.

I saw a Facebook post the other day where a guy posted a link to a Haitian charity, which after being criticized by a friend, he responded that he’d be willing to “issue a retraction.” I got the sense that I was the only witness to something very strange. Who was this intended for? What body would be overseeing this formal procedure? Why would he say that?

Schopenhauer had a name for this empty talk, he called it “fencing in the mirror.” It’s more common than you think. Consider all the times you’ve seen some blogger apologize for not posting recently – profusely addressing some concern that likely was never expressed. Or the Twitter updates to 38 followers, half of which are bots or uncaring companies. More realistically, maybe you’ve read too much into looks from a table of girls at a restaurant (a type I evolutionary error). Maybe you like like to roll down the windows in your car, turn up the stereo and know that everyone is just so impressed by your classic taste.

Have you ever seen a person on YouTube who makes elaborate, time consuming videos day after day to a few views a piece? This person who gets objective reports on the audience for their work – as close to zero as numbers get – continues, in their own mind, to capture its attention.

You can either live your life pandering to this empty room or you can be honest with yourself and admit how few people out there are actually watching. How there is really only one, maybe two people in your life that you need to impress. You look like a fool when you act any differently.

Think about it like this, how rare is it that a real public pulpit does someone any good? What on earth would you think that a fake one would be anything but worse?

I think when you’re younger you see people who work real hard as being suckers. I remember when I first moved to Hollywood, I would leave every night exactly when my required time ended. I looked down on the people that were still there when I left. It’s sort of a lack of perspective mixed with petulance and condescension.

And because you don’t know any better, you start to think that the only thing standing between you and whatever you hope to accomplish is never giving into the life these people seem to have found tolerable. They don’t know that things have changed. The 9-5 is over, unnecessary.

Look at the shit in this idiot’s bio. It takes what we’d consider to be ordinary and lists them as accomplishments. He met Penelope Trunk! He shook Warren Buffet’s hand! He hosted a charity mixer! He doesn’t just want you to know this, he wants to be credited for it. Congratulated even. If only he could think for a second about:

A horse at the end of the race…

A dog when the hunt is over…

A bee when its honey is stored...

All this talk about blogs, and start-ups, and self-publishing and global micro-brands. It’s a mask for a enormous sense of entitlement. In a weird way, it has created a culture of people I know who almost disdain work, or at least, anything that might be perceived as traditional kinds of work.

They want to have a blog where they can communicate with some imaginary audience. Or they’re going to work at start-up and babble about equity. Or travel and live abroad. These all seem like normal teenage idealism, but to me they feel like schemes.

An interesting fact about recessions is that in them, people tend to be more likely to fall for scams and charlatans. Oh, I’m making a ton of money flipping houses. I support myself by playing online poker Uh-huh, and what do you think “I’m a social media strategist” is, or “I’m a location-independent freelance consultant.” It’s the same bullshit. It’s the same lie.

As a human being, your job is to work. To show up. To learn. To contribute. Not to come up with excuses, surround them with buzz words and demand thanks for coming up with a new way of life. Because you didn’t. You just found what weak minds have always gravitated to: a false sense of superiority at the expense of a real opportunity.

Your mind plays tricks on you. They brought me in because I’m the best. They want me to implement my way. This is foolish. This is ego-driven self-destruction.

Most of your impulses are bullshit. Most of your ideas suck. What you think is so important now will embarrass you not long from now.

Now that you’re out of school and on your own, you need to carve a space where these failures don’t define you. Where they don’t provide ammunition for others to dismiss you. In fact, the most important thing a company looks for when they hire a young person is not his skill but his ability to maintain and utilize those skills within the existing order. Doing this depends on your ability to understand and appreciate the terrain – the realities of the environment you’re hoping to succeed in.

Terrain takes a variety of forms. In social politics, Alinsky knew that tradition was the terrain. On the internet, it’s the way that information is communicated and spread. In organizations, personalities are the terrain.

Understanding and internalizing these intricacies requires a certain type of patience and humility. The wherewithal to come in and say nothing. You have to subjugate what you want with how things are.

Michael Polanyi, the scientist and philosopher, knew that belief in tradition was the key with which scientists often unlock the greatest discoveries. Each advancement takes for granted those that preceded it – implicitly they value the current system by nature of expanding and altering it. Those without the ability to take certain assumptions as a matter of faith are unable to proceed in any direction. They’re paralyzed by their own skepticism, like a revolutionary movie producer so distracted by the inefficiencies in union rules that he takes on the Teamsters at the expense of actually making a movie.

Thurgood Marshall had a mentor who refused to give him a job after law school. He told him he needed to get his “head kicked in” before he was worth anything to him. So Marshall left and was thrown around by racist judges and double standards and garbage cases. Through it he learned the secrets of the white legal system, secrets he later used to dismantle its many problems.

Consider a scientist who rejects Polanyi’s notion or a more conceited Thurgood Marshall. Both are stopped short of contribution because of their inability to develop a foundation with which they advance their goals. They are like a young person too fragile to stomach and tolerate conditions they don’t approve of.

The next time you find yourself in a new environment, dedicate weeks or even a few months to understanding the terrain. Give yourself time to be underestimated. Familiarize yourself with the system so you know what to do when you fuck up, so nothing is irreparable or permanent. Quieting your ego is not the same as changing your principles, in fact, it’s the best way towards implementing them.