There's a
little shame in being
poor; but there's a
truckload of shame in
begging.
There's a
bit of shame in
gluttony;
sobbing over your ice cream is
fucking pitiful.
There's some
shame in having your
life suck;
crying about suicide will make
everyone who knows you remember you as the
world's biggest pussy.
There's a
touch of shame to be had from your
annoyance,
impatience,
selfishness or whatever else plagues ya. But when you
blame the world for it, you look about as
good as
Peter denouncing Jesus. Whatever it is,
the world didn't do it to you. Your
parents didn't do it to you. Neither did
Uncle Sam, the
water company or
the person who brought it up. Your
shame, insignificant as it should be, is so
fascinating to you that you
dote on it,
magnify it, and end up making yourself
look ten times more worthless than you are.
I don't really
get the concept of
shame. 'Cause I can't think of
anything that is
so shameful that the
mere act of admitting it,
taking the blows, can't utterly
compensate. I mean, a
poor,
fat,
ugly, or
mean person seems completely
vindicated to me by simply
standing up,
facing, and
dealing with their
problem. Even the
murderer doesn't seem so shameful if he stands there in
court and
takes what's coming to him.
Then there's them who just
can't bear to
not think about themselves; who absolutely
must be involved in and angry at themselves or they're just
not happy. And thanks to their
whining, everyone else quickly
follows suit.
We all
fuck up. We just don't all
get off on it so much.