Shame, the Soul-Sucker

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” – Frank Herbert (Dune)

Yeah, Frank is right, fear is the mind killer, no doubt. But, given a choice, I’ll take fear over shame ten times out of ten. Shame is the soul-sucker. I hate feeling shame so much. But even shame has its place for me. I have never-ever learned lessons as fast as I have after I’ve been shamed. Let me share one  example as to how learning occurred for me because of shame, and how my behavior changed somewhat for the better as a result;

Twenty years ago, right after early Easter Sunday mass, Irene and I took our three mutts out for a jog on Water Dog Lake Trail. This is a rather steep three-mile trail with a wide, hard-packed dirt surface, making for great jogging for us humans and great butt-sniffing and socializing for all the dogs, who were off-lead and legion, outnumbering walkers and joggers at least two to one.

We had begun our exercise at the bottom of the trail, and came back down to confront a thin Caucasian guy with a black trench coat and a scraggly Australian Shepherd mix pup. Our hound Connie was a bit out in front and was nose to nose with the guy’s dog, each of them growling, bristling and circling the way dogs do just before it escalates into something more significant. The young fellow was simply standing there, taking no action to de-escalate the situation, which should have been a clue. I went to Connie, pulled her back and knelt with her, and glanced over at the guy.

His one comment to me was “Asshole!”and started walking up the trail. I didn’t reply to him as I was shocked he said anything at all and didn’t know what to say. He turned near the top of the trail at its bend and looked back. “And don’t raise your eyes,” he added.

That was the point that manhood required me to send Irene down to the car with the dogs and take a walk up the path to have a little heart-to-heart with the little moron. Instead, intimidated by something – his weird garb, wearing a black trench coat in 80 degree weather, or his prison-tough attitude, I did nothing at all and just watched him disappear around the bend.

For weeks I couldn’t let the scenario go. I had been faced, big-time, in front of Irene and the dogs, and what had I done? Nothing. I created every excuse for myself I could think of – with that weird coat obviously the guy was a psycho and had at least a knife, probably a gun, maybe a grenade. He was a home-invader who was escaping with the stolen dog. He boxed for the army and also had a black belt in Tai Keon Do. No good. I simply had to live with it, which was very hard to do.

Scroll forward a decade and I’m playing golf with a couple of rowdy younger work-friends who decided, to speed our round up, we should cut in front of a large group of young teenagers shepherded by a nattily dressed, wiry black guy about my height, from appearance and tone an authoritarian-styled PE coach or similar. He took immediate umbrage at our cutting in front of his group without so much as a “may-we-play-thru” or even a “kiss-my-privileged-white-wrist”, the latter because he seemed to take our collective action as racist. At the next tee, he immediately got in MY face, the only innocent one of we three, stated he and his group were as entitled to be on the course as we were, and demanded an immediate apology, “Or I’m gonna knock the crap out of you!”

Immediately I flashed on my earlier shaming and, bless my heart, told him to take a hike or suffer the consequences, and also that he should watch his actions in front of his class. “You’re lucky I’m with them!” he said as he waved his group back in front of us again, and excepting he and I giving each other some bad stink-eye nothing more was said or done.

I felt quite pleased with the no-shame outcome and, even better, my younger work-mates who were responsible for the problem to begin with were properly impressed. “Hey, you’re a regular old bad-ass, huh?” said Steve, recently back from a tour in Afghanistan and the only real bad-ass in our little group. Hey, I’ll take it; there’s nothing like street cred when you’re working with younger folks.

So did this resolve my feelings about the young man at Water Dog Lake Trail? No, it did not. And whenever I feel the need to take myself down a peg or two I can always count on that episode to help out. But clearly it taught this old dog a different trick I could use during the PE teacher episode, eh? And for that learning I’m grateful, although I still think I could do with less of that kind of learning going forward.

We are still in Connecticut and are about to begin the second leg of the Peewee’s 2021 Leaf-Peeping Tour, with Irene having scored many new New England maps and such. As usual, I will simply go wherever I’m pointed and will do my best to enjoy whatever the next days bring, and more on all this later. Thanks for reading, and for any comments you choose to share.