Spirituality for Living

The topic is shame. It’s a shameful topic. Full of shame and parts of shame. You can assemble your own shame by the time I’m done, I’m sure.

Shame is a lie, to get directly to the point. It’s a social system designed to make people willing to be pliable, and it has been very, very successful.

Most of our self doubt comes from having been immersed in a hard core training regimen of shame. Even to hear a voice utter in exasperation “Have you no shame?” has become so common place as to be a joke, and well, it would seem we supposedly live in a more enlightened age than our parents and grandparents, no?

“Shameful” “Shame on you” Stopping to think on it, it is very pervasive. It is, and even if it isn’t openly said. As attractive as some of the female pop icons are seen to be, they are likewise subject to a stigma of shame even if they never did a single morally doubtful thing. Every celebrity is suspected of shameful hedonism.

It’s like an attack. Oh, indeed it is, and it keeps going and going. Why? Perhaps one reason is we scapegoat others for our own “guilty” impulses, our “perverse” desires. We claim we don’t want those things, but become down right impassioned when someone else seems to be having them. Is this not so?

Sorry, I’m late. No worries friend. No shame will be created here. I prefer to break that system down. It breaks on its own anyway, or breaks people. It mostly breaks people, and thus mental illness is the most common threat to world health these days. Japan either has the highest (or one of the highest), suicide rates in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I see much of value in their culture, but they are dealing with an inherited “honour” system and any deviation from that is unacceptable.

I think there is really nothing wrong with some honour. Oh, I agree. Honour, giving place, it doesn’t have to have a shame system tacked onto it, but it does. Each person has something they can give, something they can offer their neighbour. The idea is that they have to be “shamed” into doing it. That personal pride and self interest aren’t enough. Also in the traditional cultures there wasn’t a lot of room for an individual to differ from their family. The whole nature/nurture argument is actually much older than modern psychology, so shame was even seen as contagious. Sort of like a karmic taint. Is this justifiable? Is it fair to say that I am dishonourable if my brother is?

Parents often have that view with respect to their children. Oh, indeed. If they aren’t happy and blame their kids for this, then they are morally obligated to blame them all are they not?

And well, surprisingly to me, people still need to hide the ancestors who were ‘bad’. Skeletons in the closet/family tree. Indeed. Shame itself and ideas of shame aren’t natural. They don’t come instinctively. An infant doesn’t care if it’s naked, or if it had a bowel movement in public. It is soon taught to care though.

If Hitler was my great grandparent or something, I wouldn’t brag about it! No need to brag, nor any need to hide your head, and bits of Hitler’s world contribution hide even in plain sight. The Volkswagen bug was a project of his. He was also an artist of sorts. I personally don’t like his landscapes, but they still exist.

I offer that we can share without shame.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

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