Shamelessly Chained

Dear Admonister,

I often suddenly remember a whole list of stupid stuff I've done. I feel so ashamed then. How can I forget? How can I make other people forget?

Please admonish,
— Forlorn Forgetter

𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔯 Forlorn Forgetter,

Complaints about your mind working too well belong on the stupidity list, not the FAQ. The FAQ, however, is the right place for delusions — so here we are.

Your attention to a list of stupid stuff is almost endearing. You treat it like chapters in an autobiography. Instead, it's more like a grocery shopping list — we pretend it's useful for planning. But in the real world, we still buy stuff we don't need, and we stumble upon things we do need but didn't put on the list.

Most stupidity is awkward, regrettable, and utterly inconsequential at worst. If it weren't for the sense of shame, you'd forget as easily as last week's dinners. It is very likely you are guilty of follies that you don't even remember — although others may. Conversely, there are missteps no-one remembers, or cares about, but you.

The real problem here isn't stupidity, nor the remembrance of it. You speak of stupidity as if it were incidental. It is the default. Like any human, you were born stupid — incompetent, useless, dependent on correction. As you grew, you failed, persevered and became better. And then you found new ways to be stupid. The cycle of growth is petty, not pretty.

At some point, you exhausted your willpower to suffer the failure necessary for growth. Instead, you chose perfectionism and achieved success — until natural talent ran out. You're stuck with an identity and self-confidence that relies fully on avoiding stupidity. Now shame is your warden, with anxiety for a voice, and memories for a baton.

Supposedly, shame protects us from rejection by others. When has that ever worked, though? What actual consequences of stupidity do you still live with today that shame prevented, or that more shame could have prevented?

In fact, shame is a uniquely private delusion. Name three things your best friend is ashamed of. You can't — your mind is not concerned with their shame, and neither is their mind concerned with yours. If a human mind already struggles with handling its own stupidity, how could it possibly track the stupidity of others as well?

But suppose you actually did something stupid, consequential and memorable for others. Maybe people still tease you for it and so your folly is their comedic relief. So what? Perhaps you really offended or hurt someone — you apologised or not, they accepted or not.

Whatever happened, the price was known and paid — or left unpaid — then. The past is settled: one accepts it or one acts to make it so. For you — or others — to refuse settling and to instead nurse shame forever isn't atonement for errors; it's cowardice.

What do you think life should look like? A memory and reputation untainted by stupidity? A life without pain, regret, or ridicule? A life without shame?

Shame does not prevent rejection by others — it is preventative self-rejection. It annotates and regurgitates memories with an inflated severity for no purpose but to keep you down. It grows no one and corrects nothing.

Wasting your life by avoidance — that would be a shame. Taking yourself more seriously than the universe takes you — that would be a shame. Addicting yourself to imaginary punishment to escape living — that would be a shame.

So twist your memory chain of shame into a Gordian knot of stupidity. Flail it at a universe that gave you life — with shame and stupidity and no purpose or perfection.