Shame and Guilt
I've come to start wondering whether I'm more drive by guilt or shame. Guilt being a concern for doing what's good or bad to my own conscience, and shame being that concern for how others view my actions.
The reason the concern pops up is that I've often noted that my ideas for good or bad tend to be different from others on a consistent basis -perhaps my overexposure to history tends to leave me more accepting to pain and suffering in the abstract, but to also make me more inured to my own discomfort/inconvenience in the concrete when my aid can be useful- so my actions often go towards a shame based action with a rationalization about why I did it that way, and most likely a discussion with the person around me about why I don't consider the action I took to be optimal. This of course means I reveal a lot of my motivations to others, ironically furthering the detachment that I was striving to avoid -although I think people generally like having someone around who's willing to reveal vulnerability in a sphere most of us tend to want to avoid.
On the other hand, while I often feel the abrasion of my own ideas against other's, I often espouse the belief that rules -laws, really- are more like a game, and don't exist outside of their enforcement or voluntary recognition. Then again, i guess this is still guilt based since my main concern here is with punishment, as opposed to be shunned.
Technically, it doesn't really matter which one I'm more motivated by, as my actions are fairly self consistent, but the awareness at least would be a form of self honesty, and I'm past the point of thinking I need to be a rock holding off the rush of the sea in my morality rather than a tree, strong but also providing comfort and succor to those around me.
The reason the concern pops up is that I've often noted that my ideas for good or bad tend to be different from others on a consistent basis -perhaps my overexposure to history tends to leave me more accepting to pain and suffering in the abstract, but to also make me more inured to my own discomfort/inconvenience in the concrete when my aid can be useful- so my actions often go towards a shame based action with a rationalization about why I did it that way, and most likely a discussion with the person around me about why I don't consider the action I took to be optimal. This of course means I reveal a lot of my motivations to others, ironically furthering the detachment that I was striving to avoid -although I think people generally like having someone around who's willing to reveal vulnerability in a sphere most of us tend to want to avoid.
On the other hand, while I often feel the abrasion of my own ideas against other's, I often espouse the belief that rules -laws, really- are more like a game, and don't exist outside of their enforcement or voluntary recognition. Then again, i guess this is still guilt based since my main concern here is with punishment, as opposed to be shunned.
Technically, it doesn't really matter which one I'm more motivated by, as my actions are fairly self consistent, but the awareness at least would be a form of self honesty, and I'm past the point of thinking I need to be a rock holding off the rush of the sea in my morality rather than a tree, strong but also providing comfort and succor to those around me.