To be or not to be ashamed....
Shame, it's interesting. I experience intense shame, as perhaps I am meant to. Let me explain. Shame, guilt, embarrassment, they all seem to be shades of a color but in those slight differences, there is great import. I have thought of guilt before as a somewhat useful emotion. Essentially, I see guilt as telling me when I have crossed some boundary I have set up for myself. I do in fact feel guilty that I spanked a child once. I was young and still wish I had known better. When I saw that child cry and then cling to me because I was also the only comfort, I shook and begged him for forgiveness. I resolved, in that moment, to never harm another child. My intention was honourable--the mom gave me a code by which to operate. She told me that she wanted me to give the child one warning and then spank him if he didn't respond immediately. I thought I was honouring the parent's right to determine how their child should be raised. From that experience, and my feeling of intense guilt, I know that I can not live with myself when I cross that boundary or any other boundary I set for myself and not suffer the slings and arrows of my own conscience. That experience formed a fundamental component of my personality and I know that I am in line with my best self when I follow that guide.
Embarrassment. That's different. I used to live in absolute fear of embarrassing myself, particularly of being conspicuous in anyway; I dodged all cameras; I refused to dance, etc. I thought it totally embarrassing to stand out in any way, to be noticed. Then, one day, about 3.5 years ago, I said something off the cuff and sort of embarrassed myself for speaking before I thought about what I was saying. I sat in Turk's with a red face and a slightly butterflied belly and decided I sort of liked the giddy feeling of embarrassing myself. In a fraction of a second, I realized that there was something of value in that experience as well--maybe a kind of adjustment of self in the world, a relaxing of any attempt at a strict adherence to somewhat useless social norms that keep us all trapped in a loop of internalized self-oppression. Embarrassing myself, I opened the door to many people and a kind of wicked and delightful joy of myself and others in this crazy world.
And then to shame. I do, in fact, feel shame. Not because I love a particular person or I engage in sexual contact. I don't worry that I'm not a "good" person--whatever that means. But, I do hate myself sometimes. For hours, or days, or weeks, or, rarely, months, I hate myself. Not because I am "bad" but because I am not now nor have I ever been nor will I ever be "good enough." It's an impossible task I set myself, something promethean or sisyphysian. On the one hand, I grow by seeing where I want to improve myself and my world but I also open the door to that ringing hollow where I know that if there is more to do, then that means I haven't been good enough, worked hard enough, loved deeply enough, etc. Shame walks into that space, throws his feet up in front of the fire and makes himself at home at least until the fires of self-loathing abate and he wanders off to bother someone else for a while. For the life of me, I know not the usefulness of shame. Guilt tells me when I've crossed my own boundaries; embarrassment warns me when I may be crossing the boundaries of others (at least as far as social protocols go) but what the hell does shame do for me or anyone else? What's totally fucked is that I end up in this place of being ashamed of my own shame--a joke I think Plato might enjoy. Shouldn't "I" be more evolved? Shouldn't "I" know better? Shouldn't "I" have conquered what is surely nothing more than a weak and feeble old man easily outrun or beaten down?
Some say that human cultures possess but a few tools for social control--one of those being guilt, the other, shame. Some say that guilt is directed at one's own actions while shame is directed at one's very sense of self; i.e. I feel guilty over spanking a child and resolve to never act that way again; or, I feel shame over spanking a child and I now see that I am a bad person, irredeemable, etc....
Some might argue that it's just semantics but I do think there is something there and that shame is based in that space of self-loathing. It is different in degree and kind than embarrassment or guilt. Perhaps the real horsemen of the apocalypse of the self.
I think there must be some lesson to it. Some reason we human beings are capable of experiencing that kind of anguish.
Embarrassment. That's different. I used to live in absolute fear of embarrassing myself, particularly of being conspicuous in anyway; I dodged all cameras; I refused to dance, etc. I thought it totally embarrassing to stand out in any way, to be noticed. Then, one day, about 3.5 years ago, I said something off the cuff and sort of embarrassed myself for speaking before I thought about what I was saying. I sat in Turk's with a red face and a slightly butterflied belly and decided I sort of liked the giddy feeling of embarrassing myself. In a fraction of a second, I realized that there was something of value in that experience as well--maybe a kind of adjustment of self in the world, a relaxing of any attempt at a strict adherence to somewhat useless social norms that keep us all trapped in a loop of internalized self-oppression. Embarrassing myself, I opened the door to many people and a kind of wicked and delightful joy of myself and others in this crazy world.
And then to shame. I do, in fact, feel shame. Not because I love a particular person or I engage in sexual contact. I don't worry that I'm not a "good" person--whatever that means. But, I do hate myself sometimes. For hours, or days, or weeks, or, rarely, months, I hate myself. Not because I am "bad" but because I am not now nor have I ever been nor will I ever be "good enough." It's an impossible task I set myself, something promethean or sisyphysian. On the one hand, I grow by seeing where I want to improve myself and my world but I also open the door to that ringing hollow where I know that if there is more to do, then that means I haven't been good enough, worked hard enough, loved deeply enough, etc. Shame walks into that space, throws his feet up in front of the fire and makes himself at home at least until the fires of self-loathing abate and he wanders off to bother someone else for a while. For the life of me, I know not the usefulness of shame. Guilt tells me when I've crossed my own boundaries; embarrassment warns me when I may be crossing the boundaries of others (at least as far as social protocols go) but what the hell does shame do for me or anyone else? What's totally fucked is that I end up in this place of being ashamed of my own shame--a joke I think Plato might enjoy. Shouldn't "I" be more evolved? Shouldn't "I" know better? Shouldn't "I" have conquered what is surely nothing more than a weak and feeble old man easily outrun or beaten down?
Some say that human cultures possess but a few tools for social control--one of those being guilt, the other, shame. Some say that guilt is directed at one's own actions while shame is directed at one's very sense of self; i.e. I feel guilty over spanking a child and resolve to never act that way again; or, I feel shame over spanking a child and I now see that I am a bad person, irredeemable, etc....
Some might argue that it's just semantics but I do think there is something there and that shame is based in that space of self-loathing. It is different in degree and kind than embarrassment or guilt. Perhaps the real horsemen of the apocalypse of the self.
I think there must be some lesson to it. Some reason we human beings are capable of experiencing that kind of anguish.
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