#114 - #104 (10)

I have had this blog now for more than 15 years. It has been 15 years of growing and learning. Of adventure and heartache and shame. Yesterday, they were discussing shame and guilt as part of the idea of sin. Sin is an idea - shame, guilt, love - these are not ideas. These are real emotions - like anger and hurt. Love is slightly different, because it is also an ideal. But shame and guilt are naturally there. Along with empathy it helps us to stop being socio and psychopaths. Maybe not shame and guilt per se - they are the shadow of empathy. They are what happens when we are made to feel bad for our mistakes or transgressions. If we can nourish empathy without feeding that shadow or ourselves that would be helpful.

And how do we not create shame and guilt? We do that by when a child does something wrong by not shaming them or making them feel guilty. How do we not shame children? We do not make them feel bad for what they did. And we do that by not getting angry or losing our temper. We do that by not terrifying them.

I have seen children who are terrified. They either become neurotic or they end up becoming psychopaths. People who have the inability to feel for others because they have buried everything deep inside them. So I made a mistake. Shame and guilt are the shadow of empathy. Love one another as I have loved you. A suggestion. A suggestion which destroyed an empire. An empire so dysfunctional and neurotic that it was crumbling under the weight of its own expectation and ambition.

I still don't know why it is held up as some ideal. It is the curse of Alexander the Great. The 20 something who was a madman. No off switch.

Yesterday Ghin said there is the film or book called American Psycho which is admired by boys. I was quite disturbed by this. There is nothing admirable about the protagonist in American Psycho Ghin, I had to say.