A Few Kind Words About Shame

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"No shame, no conscience!" - which of us has not heard this common phrase. It is usually pronounced angrily, with sparkling eyes and is accompanied by a finger pointing in the direction of the shameless one. Let's omit the cases when shame is manipulative, in order to subjugate a person to his will, cause him negative feelings and force him to do what he does not want to do at all. And let us speculate about shame as a socially significant feeling, without which life in human society is impossible

Each of us can give examples when the outright shamelessness of some specimens catches our eyes and does not allow us to remain indifferent.

Here is the line at the clinic and the impudent girl confidently walks past straight to the doctor's office, not paying attention to the murmuring grandmothers.

But the dashing motorist briskly drives to the green light, which has already lit up for pedestrians, simultaneously dousing them with water from a puddle - he is in a hurry, he has no time to think about his neighbor.

Or a young guy plopping down in an empty seat right in front of a pregnant woman who was not so agile.

And some rich man, "the owner of factories, newspapers, ships", brazenly lowers dirty wastewater from his enterprise into the river, saving on treatment facilities, but not wanting to save on the next "Mercedes".

There are many examples around. Cases where shame, as a function, does not work or, even worse, is not included in the basic human settings at all, are multiplying.

So what can you do? Re-educating others is a disastrous and hopeless business. I don't want to pay attention every time, wasting my nerve cells. What helped me specifically, I will write at the end, but for now I will sweeten the pill and tell you about the opposite examples, when the feeling of shame worked and had a beneficial effect on its owner.

Examples will be from my life.

I studied in the 10th grade and, like in any classroom, we had our own hooligan boys who skipped lessons, were rude to teachers and preferred only "two" marks out of all grades. And then one of these boys once again skipped lessons, which finally got our class teacher, who decided to arrange a public debriefing for him. With the whole class she "tortured" him, demanding to tell where he chilled out, instead of diligently gnawing the granite of science. The boy was silent, like a partisan, the whole class was silent, although everyone knew everything. This lasted for half an hour. And then I blurted out: "Yes, he went to the cinema!" It was true. But this was also what is called "laid down" in the teenage environment. Why I did this until now I cannot explain to myself. The very case when the devil twitched his tongue, given that I always kept the secrets of my friends sacred and was not at all talkative … But this is what happened and I was terribly ashamed later. This incident burned my insides for a long time and I thought all the time that if I met that guy, I would definitely ask him for forgiveness. But it didn't work out. Very soon he went to prison, where he was killed. Later I wrote him a letter. Going nowhere. I asked for forgiveness. That helped.

Another case. I just gave birth to a daughter. The baby confused day with night and did not want to fall asleep at nightfall. She cried and I had to rock her all the time. I walked around the room with the child in my arms until three or four o'clock in the morning, I was completely exhausted and did not think well, because I could not sleep during the day either. And on one such night, or rather, already in the morning, my daughter finally fell asleep and I collapsed into bed exhausted. As soon as Mofey began to wrap me in his soft blanket, the phone rang. I barely opened my eyes and trudged to the phone. A voice demandingly said in the receiver: "Who is this?"And then I burst through! It’s four in the morning, I’m on my feet all night, I’m completely exhausted, and then some fool calls and, without even saying hello, demands that I introduce myself to him. “Go to hell!” I shouted and hung up. The next morning it turned out that my great-aunt called, who had arrived on an early flight and wanted to stay with us. It is good that there were other relatives in the city, and she left for them. Of course, I asked her forgiveness, explaining my unfriendly behavior, but I remember very well the terrible wave of shame that swept over me. Good granddaughter! Sent the old woman in the middle of the night, who knows where!

As for other people who behaved dishonestly towards me - they were. Have I heard the apology? Not always. Whether they are tormented by a sense of shame and remorse about their actions, I do not know. To suffer from resentment herself, chasing the same dreary thoughts in a circle is also not a pleasant occupation, and besides, it has a bad effect on health. You can go to therapy and work through all these situations, which in general I did in my time. I was let go, but the shamelessness of those around me did not stop getting into my eyes and outraged.

And then a parable caught my eye. She is short, but she helped me a lot. I will retell it

There was a man in the world. He tried to live his life according to his conscience, worked regularly, loved his wife and children, helped others. Every day, going to the service, he met a drunkard on the corner, who was sitting in dirty torn clothes and begging passers-by for change in order to get drunk. Every time a person was internally indignant - well, how can you live like that, how dare he look people in the eyes! And then time passed, the person died and went to heaven. Walking through the beautiful garden, he suddenly saw the same drunkard and was very indignant. He immediately went to the Almighty and said: “I lived my life righteously, always acted according to my conscience, so why did this dirty drunkard, who didn’t work for a day, made anyone happy and didn’t follow his life at all, went to heaven, as I?". And God answered him: "This drunkard spent his life in such a way to show others how not to live."

After reading this parable, everything fell into place for me. The phrase “Look and do it differently” was born inside me. It helps me not to get stuck in condemnation, helps me to share my responsibility and someone else's and not emotionally get hung up on resentment about other people's imperfections.

And shame … I think we need it. Like a tuning fork. On it we check our feelings every time when we suddenly go astray and do not act according to our conscience. And he saves us from the pangs of that very conscience, which are very painful and can be present in our inner world for many years if we do not ask for forgiveness in time. This is a feeling that, like Love, makes us better and more human.