For some, our world is a beautiful and friendly place. For another — it's something like a jar of spiders, where you need to deceive, betray, sting pain and eat all around. For the third life is a war, where is its, for whom “mountain” and others who have to push, like cockroaches. For the fourth, our world is a meaningless place. And for the fifth, everything is subject to a coherent logical system.
All these worlds are connected in one common, in which we all live. It seems to us that our world is one, but they are many. Often we are not even aware of such "parallel" universes and perfectly fit someone else's behavior in our "scheme".
For example, offended us people. Someone will say that he had a difficult childhood, and someone will not even notice the offense, because for him it is the norm of communication. We are very different and look at the world in different ways.
Today I want to talk about how our views affect what happens to us.
How does our picture of the world affect us?
It may seem that the world is subject to objective laws and no matter how we perceive the world. Reality is reality. This is true if we are talking about inanimate objects. Indeed, planets can move independently of us.
But when we talk about the” world of people", here everything is subject to subjective laws. I will explain with an example how this happens. Man believes that all in this world wish each other only good. It would seem that he is biased. But if he communicates with those who have the same attitude, he is right. For them, the world really consists only of benevolent people, because they do not meet others.
On earth lives great many people and usually we always can find someone itself in spirit. This often happens. For example, when we meet the “other” person, we begin to unconsciously ignore him, exclude him from our world, push him somewhere on the periphery of our life. So do not notice that faced with a parallel world.
In addition to filtering people, we also filter the events that happen to us. Let us continue the example of our good man. Let's say someone tried to insult him. Since he perceives people only in a positive way, he can come up with some excuse for that person, such as: "the person did not sleep", "maybe something happened..." and so on. “Spider” is in such a situation deem it an insult to attempt to eat and try to eat in response. As a result of their actions, both will get what they expected. Past the first event will pass unnoticed, and the second will receive a collision where it will either eat or be eaten. Both "spider” and "good" will only confirm their views.
I don't want you to think I'm making up a typology. I'm just giving examples, because no two worlds are the same.
People who are willing to betray, all around potential traitors. For those who only care about sex, the whole world looks like a veiled Orgy where everyone wants someone... you know. By the way, I think Freud was one of that cohort.
What is the most correct world?
There is no such world. If nature wanted us to see the world the same way, she would. All views are important for nature. In some periods of history, some people get the advantage, in other periods — others.
When the world and rest, thrive “good people”, and their becomes more. When chaos and collapse, thrive "bandits". This is a self-regulating system.
Today observed such a picture. The Mall was two girls, one of which started to hum loudly, and generally behave a little relaxed. At the same time there was nothing that would go beyond the bounds of decency and, in General, looked quite normal. Just, the girl's in a good mood. But the other girl was very shy of this behavior of his girlfriend, began to shush her, and then, blushing, walked away. This is the best illustration of false shame.
Why should she blush? There was nothing to be ashamed of. Even if her friend did something indecent, this behavior does not apply to her.
Very often in life we are ashamed of those things that should not be ashamed. For example, it is very strange to feel shame for another person. It still makes sense if it's your child you're responsible for. But for adult human to experience shame not makes sense.
But we still feel this shame if someone we know behaves indecently.
Why do we feel shame for others?
Plato described shame as fear of bad publicity. This is close to the truth, but I prefer a more General definition that captures more situations. Shame is the fear of attracting attention.
The fact is that Plato's definition describes a particular fear. But how do we know from what about us can go bad the rumor? All people are different, they may not like us completely different things. Which means it's safest not to attract attention at all.
Therefore, when, for example, our friend begins to hum a song in front of people or laugh out loud, and some people want to say: "Shhh, behave quietly! They'll see us!" You're attracting attention!”. This is the feeling of false shame.
Perhaps it makes sense in some situations, and especially made sense once in the past. After all, before the earth was inhabited by various tribes that strangers and people did not consider. In these circumstances, outsiders had to behave in a highly decent and, preferably, to control the companion. After all could and you for company with an impudent “to punish” blow a spear.
Fortunately, the world has changed and become much safer. You don't have to control your behavior so much anymore. But we still have fear, because attracting attention is considered by us as a rather dangerous behavior.
How to stop feeling false shame?
First of all, do not try to get rid of it just like that. The purpose of all our emotions is to warn us against something or to call us to something.
Now you know that shame is the fear of attracting attention. Or in a narrower sense, fear of bad publicity. So the first thing you should do when you feel ashamed is to think about whether the situation can really cause you some damage.
If there is no damage, then perhaps you should just spit on everything. After a few such lapses in shame response, you will cease to feel shame in such a situation.
The only thing is to think carefully, and whether it is worth doing?