Money = Power = Control

Well, you can question me on that one, but I’m just going to run with it for now to see what we end up with.

Shame is all about feeling worthless. It is an absolute assessment of the entirety of your worth in whichever group you find yourself habiting. To feel fundamentally ashamed is to feel irredeemably bad and worthless and awful. And definitely not really worthy of any real kind of happiness, or genuine magical sparkly human intimacy for that matter.

One idea is that (based on my very special equation above) the feelings of powerlessness that come from shame—an absolute and damning belief about yourself—could drive people to accumulate large quantities of money, which would (within the Capitalist system and by the very nature of money) give them power in the physical world. This could then lead them on a subconscious level to identify with that newly felt sense of power and direct it towards where they feel least in control: their shame. Where they feel most broken and afraid—hiding from being seen as a faker, a worthless piece of nothing, a joke. Like a con artist desperately trying to pass off their treasured mask (their image) as authentic.

Just to break that down a little, the material power and control gained from money could be used by people as a weapon in the endless war of managing their feelings of worthless that are born out of shame. From this perspective it could be seen that Capitalism utterly thrives on the insecure shame-based feelings of individuals. Misery = Profits.

Simultaneously, money makes the idea of “worthiness” more tangible, so to “have” lots could lead some to say, “well I must be worth something if I am to have ALL this money, right???” The ever-murmuring ache of cognitive dissonance brought about by having things and simultaneously thinking you don’t deserve anything may well lead the individual to rationalise, “I must deserve it because I must be worthy of it.” (There we go, that’s that anxiety quashed). If sufficiently self-convinced, it is at that point that money and self-worth become inextricably tied. Image becomes about money. Self-worth becomes about status. Shareholders laugh maniacally (although cry a little inside at the same time).

The fact is though, the whole notion of “deserving” was erroneous all along because it was based on a belief that a human being can be inherently “worthy” or “worthless”. It’s all besides the point. Humans are animals, all basically the same. And what’s more, we don’t choose what skin we’re born in to, or where geographically we find ourselves exiting a womb of a mother we have had no part in choosing (and that’s not the mention the issue of our never having a choice to even be born—don’t worry, we’re all in the same boat on that one). We’re all just whatever we are and we all just want to be happy, basically. The fundamental problem with all this shame business is the dealing in the idea of there being such a thing as comparable human worth. Shame is a feeling, but I also believe it’s a moral framework about power and absolutes and absolute shoulds. It’s a realm of good and evil, best kept for fairytales.

If we are to accept we’re all generally born with all the necessary apparatus (a capacity for empathy, a desire to help out and contribute, a desire for connection and acceptance etc), and that those traits are given the necessary nourishment to flourish, then all we’d ever need to be is just “us”. Our value relative to anyone else would be irrelevant. It would only ever be a question of whether or not you’ve received the necessary nurturing to become a happy being. That is all we should ever be striving for: genuinely happy people. I don’t see a dysfunctionally behaving individual and label them as “bad”—promptly concluding they deserve some punishment to “teach them a lesson”. No, it’s that kind of thinking that has got them behaving like that in the first place. What I do, is I look at them (and I’m not perfect at this by any means. Not that perfection is attainable or even a real thing anyway!), but I look at them as behaving exactly as I would have if I’d been born in their shoes. If they demonstrate a lack of awareness, I feel bad for them. I see mine as a gift. I’m lucky enough to have stumbled upon the knowledge necessary for me to take a step back from myself and to get a better look at what’s going on within me, without shame.

I will finish with the assertion (and I’m open to being wrong here) that a happy and whole being is not perfect, but never expects as much. They reach for themselves so that they can create and share and help others reach for their fullest potential too (because I believe that’s how human nature unfettered with archaic shame operates). I strongly believe that having shame driving the cogs in our minds is a mental disease that is wreaking total havoc on this planet. I believe it’s time to stop focusing on the symptoms of shame, but begin to deconstruct and destroy the toxic ideology that keeps us in physical and psychological bondage.