Embarrassing

Over at Really Good Quotes they have sections for reader submissions. There are places for 15 Minutes of Fame where you can send in an essay about any old topic although we shy away from politics which suits me just fine. They have a section for Cute Things Kids Say and one for Embarrassing Moments.

Another writer is part of a forum called My Writers Circle and he has sent out a challenge to the people there to send in essays to RGQ from MWC and perhaps in the hopes of getting them to subscribe to the ezine as well. Either that or I just like accronyms.

So what is embarrassing? What makes something embarrassing to one person and not to another? Why does an event cause embarrassment one day and if it happened the next day it would be inconsequential?

I think for something to be embarrassing it must be witnessed. If you trip over something or even when you trip over nothing, the first instinct is to look around and see if anyone noticed. If no one else is around – you just got a freebie.

With the tripping thing. Why is it that right after you trip in front of someone they say "careful" like you were some kind of idiot who went around purposely tripping over lint on the carpet? We learned to walk ages ago and give it no more thought than to breathing. We just get up and walk and usually are doing something else at the same time. So tripping over obstacles seems quite natural to me. The "careful" comment seems more to be a sigh of relief from the person who had NOT just tripped and has no bearing on the person who tripped.

How different is embarrassment from shame? I think they are related. Embarrassed is what we are for others, shamed is what we are to ourselves. It is mildly shameful to not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, unless you are 13 months old. Then you shouldn't be chewing gum anyway. Mostly because you spit it out on the carpet and your Nana steps in and trips in front of everyone.

Why embarrassment or shame for such trivial things? Tripping over a crack in the sidewalk shouldn't make you feel either emotion. But it does. Why do we feel the need to project an image of competence at all times?

As I've gotten older and found that there are so many things that I don't know that it would fill entire libraries – the size of the New York City Public Library with the Library of Congress thrown in, too – I have stopped being embarrassed to say "I don't know." That used to throw me for a loop. I hate not knowing. Now I know that I'm not supposed to know everything. What I know is so limited in scope, depth, and breadth that it is stunning. What I do know now is how to look it up.

I wonder how much of our embarrassment comes from having standards for ourselves that we wouldn't foist on one another person on the entire globe. Never trip? Who would expect that of anyone? Know everything? Even Einstein didn't – or da Vinci. Be perfect. Ah, that is the crux of the problem. Can we go through life without ever making a mistake? The mistakes themselves change. With changes in Politically Correct and obfuscatory language, you can say something that is offensive today that wasn't offensive ten years ago. I learned this week that polygamy is now called "plural families" because that has fewer negative connotations. Seems to me that "human breeding farms" would be a more accurate description, but that would not be PC. I might embarrass myself if I called them that.

Before I embarrass myself further, I should – oops hit a wrong key there, tripped with my fingers – end this.