Hi Kuba,
We talked about this issue of embarrassment before, on July 2 2026 (link). Then you were then more specific and honest as to what this “self-consciousness” entailed – pride.
At that time I said to you –
Richard to Jonathan: The semantic part of the discussion pertained to you saying the opposite of pride was embarrassment (see Syd’s Report (link)) – whereupon I pointed out that being humble (aka humility) is the more usual antonym – but given that humiliation and embarrassment are more or less synonymous it required what you characterise as a theological discussion to tease out differing connotations … to wit: the difference betwixt shame and guilt. (…) (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 4 Aug 2013).
Richard: All humility is nothing but the ego being very, very clever … it is but a product of a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity called ego. One of the chief attributes of a freedom from a ‘self’ or a ‘Self’ and from believing in a ‘God’ and a ‘Greater Reality’, is a completeness … an absence of the need to control a wayward ‘I’ with moralistic injunctions. Personally I have no humility whatsoever and, of course, neither am I proud. In order to be free of the Human Condition one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement – which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity – and ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body … including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed off each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility … it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. The opposites vanish. (…) (Richard, AF List, No. 4, 9 Jan 1999)
Vineeto: As such, in this situation, don’t just focus on the bad feeling – embarrassment, shame or humiliation – but use it as an indicator for the ‘good’ feeling of pride operating and recognize that it is pride, which stands in the way of you being more and more naïve, unsophisticated and ingenuous. (Kuba15, 2 July 2026).
This ‘self-conscious’ pride is the pride of ‘me’ having kept ‘me’ alive as an identity, with all ‘my’ interfering and affectively convoluted ways ‘I’ have at ‘my’ disposal. When some insight or event reveals some diminishment of this ‘achievement’ ‘I’ respond with the antidote of a variation of humbleness – guilt, shame or embarrassment – to divert attention that ‘my’ substance, my pride has been bruised.
Now you additionally have cloaked the reason for feeling embarrassed as “self-consciousness” and moved it even further away from being something personal – to the “animal heritage” of all human beings.
Instead of chasing your own affective tail, you can approach the feeling of “I have wet my pants” as a welcome event of some diminishment of ‘me’, my self-conscious pride, and appreciate the fact that here is an opportunity to be, and remain, less sophisticated, more ingenuous, more naïve and thus more able to “imitate the actual”.
It’s really easy when looked at from the viewpoint of your aim (applying the fulcrum of pure intent) to be less ‘self’-centric and thus closer to the innocence you want to be.
Cheers Vineeto