A few days ago, on a dinner with a friend, while talking about my experience with theater and my desire to start classes he promptly expressed that it would be impossible to him. Not “I don’t want to” — I cannot. He feels to much shame beeing the focus of attention. His reasons are his own, and they’re valid ones. But I sat with his answer, chewing on it, long after the conversation moved on.
I love seeing other people’s emotions: seeing discomfort, shame, anger, and love spill out of a person. Seeing these things in such a raw and direct way makes me remember I’m not the only one who feels them.
Shame, to me, is an alarm. It scream when you think you are at risk of being rejected by the group or when you judge your actions as bad or inadequate. It goes off when you’re caught doing something actually wrong, like stealing, lying. But it also goes off just because you think you’ll look bad. It keeps you loyal to your values even if there are your own imposed ideas and judgments.
In this regard, I envy babies. Fuck, they can do whatever; pee on themselves, make shit drawings without a flinch of shame. No one judges them, and they don’t judge themselves; they haven’t yet defined themselves to be above urinary incontinence, and it wouldn’t occur to them that anyone else cares. They are learning and falling is normal.
But when an adult steps out and does something “bad”, prepare yourself to feel like trash. We, most of the time, impose ideas on ourselves, standards that guide us thougth life but also can deprive us of experiencing thing.
In the end, we’re the ones who decide whether we’ll be a museum of failures or a gallery of attempts. I hope, one day, my friend can go to the stage, even for one day, even if badly shaking in front of everyone. That’s kind of the whole point.
