I can do fear. And guilt. And I can certainly feel ashamed about an action I have performed that was ignoble. But that giant surge of ontological shame - which prompts some people to apologize for everything proactively, to point out their shortcomings in case you might notice them first - in essence, to apologize for existing in their shameful, fallen state . . . Well, as you can see, I'm still probably getting it wrong. (And if you've ever had the misfortune to have me try to correct you for apologizing on the adorable misapprehension that somehow this will help you get over it.... Welll, I can only beg for your forbearance. Again.)
It was pretty entertaining, actually, sitting at the breakfast table while she tried to define the State of Eternal, Unredeemable Shame for me.
We think it's a Protestant thing. (Ba-dum!)
Anyway, I must study this.
(It's also probably why I fail so hard on those "Guilty Pleasures" panels (which are actually about shame): because (stay with me here), if I LIKE something, it is by definition Good - and therefore, nothing to be ashamed of!)
ETA (now that I'm reading the Leary article, and more kitchen table discussion): It's not that I never apologize for anything! Or that I'm never embarrassed! Au contraire. But, as Delia explains, I respond to other people's shame as if they were just making an oddly big deal out of mere embarrassment. Innnnteresting.
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Curiously, although I am practically a shaman of shame --if you can ferret it out in others like a shame detective, that would make you a shamus of shame-- I also don't believe in guilty pleasures, and that if I like something then it's good. But I will tell you in meticulous detail why the thing I think is good is good, and why although it resembles things that other people and I acknowledge are bad, that the thing I like is really really different from the good things.
Sorry if I've gone on too long about this...sorry I apologized... sorry I apologized for apologizing...
Trust me.
You are born wrong and nothing will ever fix it.
Max: I don't know the meaning of the word fear.
Seigfreid: Shtarker - kill him!
Max: Fear - a feeling of uneasiness.