Scott wrote: ↑April 14th, 2021, 3:54 pm
I don't think there is anything you should have done that you didn't do; I don't think there is anything you should be doing right now that you aren't already doing right now; and I don't think there is anything you should do in the future that you will not do. Thus, in a completely non-mystical and purely logical way, I therefore believe that everything that is meant to be will be, and everything that already is was thus meant to be. There is no
should or
ought or other reason for deserved shame.
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑April 15th, 2021, 7:44 am
Shame has a place, and a value. I feel shame because there is reason to feel shame. The actions of humanity, as I described above, are shameful, IMO, and so I feel shame, personal, and on behalf of my species. I cannot find it in myself to be "grateful", as your topic describes. How can one be grateful that ones predecessors (and oneself) have made a good start on the utter destruction of a living and functioning ecosystem? Shame seems more appropriate, don't you think?
No.
Assuming gratitude is a choice, I choose to be grateful.
Assuming love is a choice, I choose to be unconditionally loving.
Assuming forgiveness and non-resentment are each a choice, I choose to forgive unconditionally; and I choose to not engage in any resentment.
Insofar as it is a choice, I choose to unconditionally accept unchangable reality the way it is rather than resent unchangeable reality for being the way it is.
Shame may be a feeling like fear, hunger or pain, and in that way then shame would be generally uncontrollable and not a matter of choice. If so, then shamefulness would be to shame what scariness is to fear. In regard to such feelings, I generally watch unavoidable feelings like fear, hunger, anger, jealousy, or pain pass by like a rain storm, beautiful and interesting in its own way. Sometimes I even chase them, which is presumably why I have a motorcycle and a treadmill, to get my fear and pain fixes respectively, the scary thrills and the literal torture.
However, mostly, I can't choose the weather or the feelings. I just choose how I react to them (i.e. what I choose do while they happen to be occurring).
Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 15th, 2021, 7:48 am
It's interesting to note how the concept of shame has evolved over time. At one time, to call somebody "shameless" was to accuse them of lacking what was seen as a right and proper sense of how to behave fittingly.
Humans are silly indeed.
They used to burn people at the stake as witches too.
I've noticed humans are prone to superstitions, obsessive judgementalism, restlessness, and us-verus-them tribalism, among many other things.
While sitting in the backseat of a car, I was once arrested over an absurdly tiny amount of marijuana that ironically wasn't even mine (I'd already consumed my share), and if you can believe it the self-righteous men with guns who came after me, presumably thinking themselves the "good guys" whatever that means, did a lot more than merely wag their fingers at me and call me improper or try to verbally shame me. If shaming someone is the spiritual equivalent of violence, then they took it a few steps further than that. They didn't just figuratively attack my spirits is what I'm saying. Compared to many others, I got off easy in terms of my beloved shamelessness and the eager way in which I do allegedly improper things if not sometimes simply because they are allegedly improper, as if that could really mean anything. If a human points a shaming waging finger at you, just be glad it's not a gun in that silly human's hand.
Historically, some humans would hang other humans to death just because those humans had interracial sex. I guess to them it was seen as a shame to sleep with a human with mismatched skin tone.
Impropriety is one of humans' more laughably silly superstitions, in my opinion.