An Emotional Tale of Shame...

Friends,

I write to you today in order to share a truly emotional tale of shame, from man's best friend... The canine. This video tells the heart-wrenching story of a trusted family pet whom, in his owner's absence, gorged himself on cat treats. The raw shame he feels... Well, shamsters, it speaks for itself.

Can we condemn Denver? Well, this blogger says let he who has never eaten the proverbial cat treat cast the first stone. I do think Denver's story has a lessen to teach every person in the shamesphere, however... When you have shamed, be not afraid to let that sham-e-motion show. For it is only when we embrace our shame, and face the "kennel" of life that we can emerge from our shameful ways all the better for our experiences.

I leave you with one final thought... Be not afraid of the shame, for it is in shame which we are strongest in spirit.

The Double Double: Rage and Shame

Communique from the Front Lines of Shame:

Dear Shamesters,

It is clear to me and my other comrades in the shame game that, at certain times, shame shares a valiant side kick, rage.  Like Ike to Tina, Bobby to Whitney, or alcohol to coherent thought, shame often coalesces with rage to form what has been called by many as the double double.  As with the chicken and the egg, recent scholarship has debated if the rage leads to shame or vice versa.  It is clear to me that in most circumstances, rage undoubtably leads to shame.  

If you retrospectively assess any nights fueled by consumption and then over consumption followed by the assumption that your consumption had yet to reach its peak, you know, the one you used to be able to achieve in the years when you had more gumption, that the persona created through this process began, for whatever diluted reason, to be overcome by rage.  That rage, torpedoing down your blood and your soul, will most likely lead to a culminating incident, referred to as the ragegasim.

To quote Frost, "two roads diverge in the wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and it has made all the difference"  What Frost was referring to in this piece entitled "The Rage Not Taken" was that rage blazes through the path not taken.  In fact, it lights the whole forest ablaze, leading to your finial destination, shame.

Shame, to the contrary, cannot cause rage.  Shame, by definition, shuts us out into a cave of self realization, a dark and cold place, a place with only the mellow glow of the DVD symbol bouncing around your television illuminates whatever half-eaten slice of pepperoni you have left.  In the confines of this cave of shame, rage has no purpose and no flame to fuel the fire to blaze a path.  

Of course, this debate is far from over and I open the floor to any representative of a district of shame to weight in.

From my shame to yours,

General Shame 

Alchololics Feel No Shame?

Shamesters:

I have just received this illuminating empirical data from the Shame Lab in Austin, Texas. Our researchers have confirmed what many of us have no doubt suspected about shame since that one time your older cousin Mae let you try beer for the first time at the family Picnic when you were 13... As Blood Alcohol Content rises, the human "animal" becomes impervious to shame. Through intense Homo Sapien and believe it or not, Ursus maritimus, testing it has been shown that this phenomenon is quite powerful.

Our head science guy in Texas, Shamus O'Houlihan, has identified this correlation between BAC and shame as a sort of "shame force-field". It seems as though both humans and Ursus maritimus are not capable of feeling ANY meaningful amount of shame as the alcohol content of their blood approaches double that of the legal limit.

The significance of this finding should be clear... If at any time you feel shame creeping up on you, lets say as you ready yourself to deliver a cross-examination in TrialAd and find your self with an inexplicably stiffening "baby arm", simply reach for your old and trusted friend, Forty Creek. Rock that hard-on in plain sight as you shoot your BAC through the roof. Shame no more.

Of course... What goes up, must come down. Literally. When your BAC falls, or rather when you wake up in the hallway of your apartment complex face down in your Smoke's Triple Pork poutine at 6:47 am on a Wednesday, your shame levels are sure to have sky rocketed.

This begs the question, my partners in sham-e-nomics, is it better to have drank and shamed, or to have never drank at all? This is the question we must all face. Hauntingly enough, it seems... which ever we choose, our shame is there to greet us.

- Yours, always, in shame

Private Shame

Ps, This just in... It is impossible to feel shame in the 46 minutes it takes to listen to Vivaldi: Four Seasons. Use this information wisely, my friends.

Sudden Onset Shame

Friends,

Often our shame levels build over time. One drunken call to an ex here, a minor post-bar crime there and a sloppy dance floor make-out there, there and behind the dj booth. However there is another type of shame we must acknowledge: Sudden Onset Shame (S.O.S.).

SOS is the most crippling type of shame because not only does it bring with it the usual self loathing, but also panic, distress and mild to heavy perspiration.

I experienced S.O.S. not 15 minutes ago in the form of the of another dreaded shame category, the missed deadline shame.

My S.O.S. encounter went like this: I got an email informing me that a deadline to pay a certain fee was approaching... I ignored it for 3 days. I read the email, and realized that the deadline is in fact next week, and my bank account isn't lookin' so hot. I panicked, I felt shame. I almost punched a wall.

And then? I called my mommy. Yup. And let this be a lesson to us all... When I felt shame after falling off my bike and nearly breaking my wrist when I was 9, I cried to mommy. And when I was unable to pay my bills when I was 24, I cried to mommy.

The mommy to shame relationship is one that requires more investigation. Until now, try to avoid S.O.S.

It is an evil bastard.

- Private Shame, reporting.

An empirical lesson: Embracing the shame

“Where shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails, And each by turns his aching heart [ed: liver] assails.” --Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso); Metamorphoses (bk. III, Transformation of Actoeon, l. 73), (Addison's translation)

As a cat, one is socialized vis a vis the notion of “shame” as naught but an admission of human stupidity…an experience we simply do not entertain [for cats are divine creatures with no reason to shame, ever. Right?]. Accordingly, ours is a mentality of not only a deep refusal to share shame, but often to remain ignorant to its existence altogether.

Or so I thought.

Then…the wisdom of the universe presented itself today in a divine intervention after I attempted to avoid my shame and departed a group cave with comrades who had the fortitude to both face and share their shame. It is my desire to share this experience so that others may too realize the value of their shame.

Instead, I ran to my office to cloak my shame under a preface of productivity. Upon arrival, I discovered that in my flustered mess I had lost my keys…an occurrence worthy of some shame for anyone with a sense of responsibility. Not for I -- the loss of keys was clearly just a challenge to make my academic perseverance more epic. The mission was clear in my mind: get in anyway, and study. This resulted in an unfortunate exchange with campus security after my raging disapproval at the fact they would not let me in and in turn, expression of rather subjective conclusions of their intelligence levels for adhering to this policy. Shame? Not yet.

Discouraged, but still stubborn like only a retarded bulldog could be, I retreated to my favourite café – not to reside in a shame cave, but to again to falsify my value to society with an attempt at fake productivity. Here I encountered a pair of gay pirates, who saw through my front and sat at my table, only to engage in a full wrestling match and spill my water and coffee over my work. Again, I masked my resident shame with rage – amplified by the ticket I got on my car as I retreated once again to find a different outlet for my shame-escape.

Frustrated …alone…and desiring nothing but a cave to retreat to, I tried to run. In a figurative, and unfortunately for my struggling liver/stomach/head, literal attempt. So there I was…with reminiscent sounds of Vivaldi firing my feet, I sprinted into the wind with a sense of confidence and false hope akin to that felt before the realization that the douchebag alley cat you spent the night swooning over was indeed lying when he said he’d call.

…this ambition was, naturally, after consuming wine like catnip for 6 hours, quickly shattered. Oh yes, yes it was. In a vehement expression of retaliation, my hangover dropped me at the foot of Fort Henry, cowering and shivering in fetal and wondering how I’d make it back home.

The profound feeling of defeat was overwhelming, as if I had discovered the alley cat not only didn’t call, but left me with fleas and was off preening that Persian that sheds her hair like some feline might be lucky enough to catch her scent on the gentle breeze. Bitch probably gave him fleas in the first place. She deserves shame. [Aside: Or does she? A provocative assertion; for can one really shame another? Or only themselves? Was this petty thought just a manifestation of my own shame for being foiled by the alley cat in the first place? A topic for mewsing another day. For meow, I digress...]


Suddenly, as I started to spiral into what I thought was the deepest form of hell, the clouds separated and cast a ray of sunshine upon me. The photo accompanying this post depicts this moment [true story, taken today 4:48pm from Fort Henry]. For this, comrades, was the very sun patch I sought earlier that day to fortify the walls of my shame cave. So, finally...battered, but no longer afraid, I did…in all it’s glory, I faced my shame and crawled into my cave. Nay, I embraced it. I leaped in there like a cat that escaped neutering would spring into the sunset. And what a journey it was/is...for now I write as a better cat, with the re-fired motivation to accomplish what I need to: tomorrow. Additionally, with the anticipation of another legendary moment of shame-invoking debauchery that will bring me here again, for my shame cave awaits. Maybe next time I’ll even share it in a group shame.

But for meow, I reside in the depths of my cave and ponder the sweetness of doing nothing at all. For indeed, comrades, in shame is the intrinsic value of reflection. It is in shame that we learn, grow, laugh, and bond. In shame that we can truly appreciate the simple beauty of feeling like a sloth-like waste of space, yet somehow achieve divinity in persevering through the realization of our humanity to live on, and live Awesome.

Animals Feel Shame Too

Shame is not limited to our species, shame, in fact, permeates the animal kingdom at large.  What happened to this shameful polar bear?  Is he looking at his i-phone discovering the text messages he sent to Sally Polar Bear at 3:17am?  Did he just awake to find a half eaten poutine beside him?  or, as is most probably in shame situations, he does not even know what to feel shame about, but he feels it.  He knows deep inside the blurry confines of his night are instances of shame.  Was it the dance moves?  Was it the sexual advances to the other female polar bears at the "ice breaker" smoker?  It will be impossible for him to tell.

Go back to your shame cave young polar bear, you will live to fight...and shame....another day.

The Anatomy of the Shame Cave

Dear Readers,

A wonderful and expressive term has recently entered the lexicon of the English language. This almost magical expression describes both a physical place, and a general state of mind. It conjures up images so dark and desolate that grown men have been know to weep at its mere mention. My fellow shamesters, we are talking about the infamous and glorious "Shame Cave".

For the un-shameful among us, the idea of a cave meant specifically for shame might seem obtuse. Those who have dared, nay, endeavored to enter their own personal caves of shame know both their power and their necessity.

There is only one pre-requisite for a shame cave... One must enter a S.C. after a night of consumption where either a specific shameful event has taken place, or a shame build up has occurred and reached critical mass.

The burning question is a deceptively difficult and probing inquiry... What is a shame cave? And more, what does one need in order to create one? Well, shamesters, look now further. Follow these simple rules and you too can bask in the crippling embarrassment of your own shame cave:

1. There is a minimum stay of 24 hours once you enter.

2. The ideal position of your cave is in your bed, or perhaps on a couch (provided you woke up on it after passing out drunk).

3. It is recommended that you DO NOT eat during your stay... If you must eat, ordering pizza or eating unsalted crackers from your pantry are your only options.

4. Your attire must consist ONLY of the following: your clothes from the previous shame filled night (vomit and grass stains intact), or dirty and stained sweats.

5. Your only thoughts must be of your overwhelming shame and your desire to never deal with the circumstances which induced it in any meaningful manner.

6. You may watch television, but it must be meaningless garbage tv (infomercials)... this is to allow focus on your abounding shame.

7. You may not sleep while the sun is down, only day time sleeping is permitted. And only in twenty minute spells... Again, the focus here must remain on your shame and only your shame.

8. Finally... and MOST IMPORTANTLY:

You must not have any contact with the outside world what so ever. Don't even look at your phone, despite the sure to be dozens of calls and texts informing you of your shameful behaviour. You don't need this... you know what you've done and need to focus on it. No facebook, no email. Only your shame.


Well... that's it, folks. Do all of the above and with any luck, after your 24 hour stay you should be shame free and ready to emerge from your cave and re enter society. If not, lather rinse and repeat that shit.

Stay shameful.