The Vulgarity of a Blush

Is blushing an only human trait? Do animals blush? Can an AI ever express emotion? 

The face is the chief seat of expression. In this episode, I discuss the biological and psychological process of blushing, based on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin. I explore the different things that can trigger a blush, and the connection between blinking and blushing by analyzing In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch. I focus on self-awareness and how other people's opinions and the ways they perceive us can affect our self-image, and consequently, direct our behaviors and the decisions we make. What role does blushing play in terms of evolution and the development of consciousness? What is the conscience? I believe shame is not an emotion, but an action. How deep is your connection to yourself?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi, welcome to the Crystal Quiet Podcast. I am your host, Adriana Montenegro, and this is episode five, The Vulgarity of a Blush. I have always been interested in blushing. So I did a performance piece on blushing called The Vulgarity of a Blush. I did a performance art piece in 2022 at the Inverse Performance Art Festival in Bentonville, Arkansas at the Momentary Museum. And the performance was an exploration of vulnerability and self-consciousness. I was fully naked, and I was wearing a sign that I had made that says Make Me Blush. And I stood there for about, I'd say an hour and a half or so. People were invited to try and make me blush. And it was a very interesting experience because throughout that whole time that I was standing there, not only did I experience what it felt like to blush continually to the point that I was able to be aware of the muscles, every little muscle of my face that was kind of contracting or I guess blood was pulsating through there. I was aware of each sensation that I felt at that moment. And each time somebody would make me blush, I I could feel the heat and I could feel the parts of my cheek that would that were self-aware. It was interesting to see the different things that would make me blush. I went into it thinking, I don't know why, but I had the belief that it was going to be based on, I guess, shameful things or negative comments that would make me blush and cause embarrassment. And I was very surprised to find out that what actually made me blush was the compliments and people telling me, oh, you look beautiful, or look what a beautiful smile you have, or oh, you have a beautiful body, or anything that was unexpected for me. And at the time I didn't understand why I was blushing for those compliments or comments, um, and especially why I did believe that I would blush more from negative comments or people making bad, dirty jokes or something like that. But that happened quite often and it didn't make me blush. At one point, a little girl came or was it a little boy? I don't know. A child came up to me and wanted to hand me a dollar bill or some money, and so they just threw it on the floor in front of me. I guess the joke was that, like, oh, I'm naked, you know. I forget how old the child was. Pretty young, very young. One of those things that if it wasn't a performance piece or an art piece, children probably would not be allowed at something like that. What really stood out to me was um I saw two or three people crying, and I didn't understand why they were crying. I went over and, you know, spoke to them after the performance and asked them to tell me why they were crying. A friend of mine that watched the performance, she said that the reason she was crying is because I guess she associates blushing with crying, which is a whole thing to unpack in itself, I suppose, because blushing is usually tied to shameful feelings, or can be. It is interesting to note the reasons why we blush. That is something I like to go around asking people I know. I honestly wish I could conduct a more thorough research study on what makes people blush. And I would love to sit down and talk to people, see the different triggers that make them blush. I think it's fascinating. And I'd love to know the differences, the nuances between different people and also see the commonalities of what makes people blush. From the research I've done so far on blushing, I have found that there are common themes. Usually people blush when they've made a mistake or there's some type of failure or they feel that it they have failed in some way or done something that could be perceived as wrong. It's very interesting to observe what it is that not only society considers, I guess, out of place, but also people themselves and how they view what they have done or how they view themselves, not only that, but how they believe others view them, I think has more to do with the blushing aspect and shame. These are two topics that I think are tied together. The more I read about this, the more I do feel that shame is the the one emotion that comes up when people talk about blushing. And although they have found that animals show shame or manifest shame in different ways, not necessarily blushing, but they do, you know, lower their heads and cower in shame, as they say the phrase. Shame itself has evolved. Over time, humans have developed ways of dealing with shame, how we've become conscious of it, and not only how we are conscious of our own emotions, but how we deal with it, our reactions to it in the real world as you know, on a day-to-day basis. One of the reasons that I really, really want to explore these themes, it's because I would love to find out how consciousness develops. I do feel that there is some tie to how we experience emotions and how and shame is a big one. There are historical texts that have representations of this, and one of the main ones is the biblical representation of shame, which is the very well-known story of Adam and Eve. I had heard one of um Jordan Peterson's lectures, I don't remember which one at the moment. He was discussing the story of Genesis and the Garden of Eden, and he mentions that the name Adam comes from the Hebrew word Adama, which means from the earth, ground, and is a combination between that and the Hebrew word edam, which means red. And I later went and looked this up and tried to like find out if this is true, if or the root of these words, if it makes sense at all. And I did find that Adam is also made up from the root word dam, D-A-M, which is a Hebrew word that means blood. And Peterson makes the argument that this makes sense in terms of the story of the Garden of Eden, when one thinks of the symbolism of blushing and the blood that rushes up to the face when you experience a feeling of shame. Furthermore, the story of Adam and Eve is historically one of the very first depictions of shame as an emotion. And it makes sense that when writing Genesis, the authors use the word Adam to symbolize the shame he experienced that is directly correlated to the sin he committed. So I did some more research and I went even further. I looked up the etymology of Adam in Hebrew, and I came across the ancient Hebrew Research Center where they explain the root words in more detail. They give the actual Hebraic symbols and state that the name Adam could have been formed by combining the root words Adama, you'll see it here on the screen, which is the feminine form of this symbol, which means ground, earth, and dam, which means blood, and edom, which means red. I also came upon a reddit thread in which Joav Orion, an Israeli man, goes on to explain that linguistically the Hebrew name Adam is derived from the ancient Hebrew word Adam, which is written the same as Odem, which means blushing or redness. I found another reddit thread, a very different one, where someone is explaining that in the Hebrew language you will have a word and there will be offshoots of that word which have different uses. But these words come from the same roots and therefore they do have a common thread when it comes to meaning. This is clearly just a theory, and perhaps this might be controversial, but you know, there is a possibility that the Bible is just a symbolic representation of the things people were living. It was their way of processing and making sense of the world, which would make sense to to represent Adam and Eve after they've committed this mistake or sin. Falling short, which I believe that's what it means in Hebrew. Sin means to fall short of the mark. It's represented by the name Adam, which makes sense. They feel shame for the first time and they feel as if they need to cover themselves up. They feel they need to hide from God, which I also think God is another representation. God represents the the highest good, and therefore if they are hiding whether that's from themselves, from a an aspect of themselves that doesn't want to accept the sin or them falling short of the mark, or them having made a mistake or done something that caused embarrassment or shame. It's interesting that they portray it in this way where they cover themselves up, they're hiding from God. It brings up a lot of interesting points because I know that not everybody blushes in the same manner, that shame cannot actually be manifested in multiple ways, and it doesn't have to be a reddening in the face. That is one of the ways that shame can be expressed physically. Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. So I have all four essential volumes in The Indelible Stamp by Charles Darwin, which is a collection of almost everything he wrote. I read through the last chapter, which is the expression of the emotions in man and animals by Charles Darwin, and it was written in 1872. He noted that blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. This is what he believed at the time, but I do want to kind of go through what he wrote because there isn't too much research on blushing at the moment. I was able to find some other books and other studies done on blushing. But I do want to start with his because it was the very first account ever written about blushing. And he does go on to say that it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush. I'll make a side note because I did look it up recently and I found some scientific papers where they are proving or trying to prove that they have found that some birds do blush. In terms of the proof, I would like to see it before I can actually say, yes, there is proof that animals blush. So I did read through some of those papers, and I can bring them in and talk about them specifically. I just wanted to start with Darwin. So I'll go back to what he was saying. The reddening of the face from a blush is due to the relaxation of the muscular coats of the small arteries by which the capillaries become filled with blood. And this depends on the proper vasomotor center affected. No doubt if there be at the same time much mental agitation, the general circulation will be affected, but it is not due to the action of the heart that the network of minute vessels covering the face becomes under a sense of shame, gorged with blood. We cannot cause a blush by any physical means, that is, by any action of the body. It is the mind which must be affected. Blushing is involuntary. I think this is a a very interesting point because it does show how well connected the mind and the body are in this way. There's very few things that are involuntary, human actions, and blushing is one of those that you you really can't fake. Or at least I have not ever found anyone who can fake it, or even proof of other people who are able to fake it. It is quite interesting that the mind is the one that is responsible for the blushing and it isn't the body. Because from some other research I've read, we do have the way the amygdala and the reptilian brain work is that when you see or think you see a snake on the ground, your brain automatically is ready and prepared to protect you. And so your brain becomes hypervigilant for like any threat of danger on the ground. So any sticks, anything you start seeing, it starts to protect itself to so that if you were to encounter a snake, you would be prepared, or at least your brain would be ready for a threat. That is how we have evolved. But at the same time, it's interesting that even then the mind is the one that is responsible for some signals that the eye is sending to the brain. So it's hard to know which acts first, whether it's the mind sending a signal to the eye when it picks up on a possible movement on the ground or a stick, or whether this is the eye that notices it first. I I don't know. I guess I would have to do research on that. Here it's clear that the blushing happens after the mind has experienced shame. So the shame comes first, the emotion hits first, and then the redness happens. He then says that it appears that the mental powers of infants are not as yet sufficiently developed to allow blushing. Hence, also it is that idiots rarely blush. And he uses the word idiots because back then they were talking about um mentally handicapped individuals. He was able to prove that he did some studies and he found out that they rarely ever blush. He found out that women blush much more often than men do. The blind blush, the deaf blush. And then he says that the tendency to blush is inherited. In most cases, the face, ears, and neck are the sole parts which redden, but many persons, whilst blushing intensely, feel that their whole bodies grow hot and tingle, and this shows that the entire surface must be in some manner affected. Blushing usually begins on the cheeks and then spreads to the ears and neck. The reddening of the skin is usually followed by a slight pallor, which shows that the capillary vessels contract after dilating. A little girl shocked by what she imagines to be an act of indelicacy, blushed all over her abdomen and the upper parts of her legs. He does go on to show many different examples of different people. A woman who he noticed the blush would continue on to her chest and her neck and even her breasts. Some people have it go all the way down to their stomach. So it's interesting to see how different people are affected by it. He mentions that men of certain cultures who habitually go nearly naked often blush all over their arms and chests and even down to their waists. A woman informed Dr. Crichton Brown that when she feels ashamed or agitated, she blushes all over her face, her neck, wrists, and hands, all over the exposed portions of her skin. It is interesting to note that there is some relation to the way we believe we are being perceived by others. There is that connection of being seen and all the parts that where people can see us, all our exposed skin. So if we had been hiding under a blanket, we most likely, and we did something indelicate or indecent, they might not blush at all under the blanket. I'm not sure. He does mention that the attention of the mind has been directed much more frequently and earnestly to the face than any other part of the body, which would make sense as to why we blush first and foremost on our cheeks and on our face. It's the first thing that people look at when we are in front of others. Our face is the, I guess, the main point of attention. Under a keen sense of shame, there is a strong desire for concealment. An ashamed person can hardly endure to meet the gaze of those present, so that he almost invariably casts down his eyes or looks ascant. As there generally exists at the same time a strong wish to avoid the appearance of shame, a vain attempt is made to look directly at the person who causes this feeling. And the antagonism between these opposite tendencies leads to various restless movements in the eyes. I have noticed two ladies who, whilst blushing, have acquired the oddest trick of incessantly blinking their eyelids with extraordinary rapidity. An intense blush is sometimes accompanied by a slight effusion of tears, and this is due to the lacrimal glands partaking of the increased supply of blood, which we know rushes into the capillaries of the adjoining parts, including the retina. So this makes perfect sense now to me when I think back on the performance piece that I did, and there was a few people who were crying when they saw me blush, which is interesting that it wasn't even that they themselves had to blush, it was even just the act of watching me blushing made them cry. That was very interesting. I also, going back to the blinking of the eyelids, the incessant blinking. In the book In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Merch, the reason I believe it connects to what I just read about the blinking is because he mentions that when people are trying to make sense of something that is not yet resolved, they will blink a lot because it is the body's way of showing confusion or the mind trying to find a solution or make sense of something. He does mention in the book how people blink when they are processing something, when they don't understand something and they're trying to make sense of it, which would connect perfectly with why we would blink in those moments when we do feel ashamed or when we feel a blush coming. Because perhaps we don't understand exactly what we've done, but suddenly it comes to us. And then the blush happens because of the shame we suddenly feel. Darwin states that according to Macrobius Saturnalia, natural philosophers assert that nature being moved by shame spreads the blood before herself as a veil. As we can see, anyone blushing often covers their face with their hands. We often see little children, when shy or ashamed, turn away and still, standing up, bury their faces in their mother's gown, or they throw themselves face down on her lap. And I think animals do the same thing. They'll turn away when they know they've done something wrong. I don't know if anyone has ever noticed that when you're scolding your dog or your pet. I don't know so much with cats, but definitely dogs. As soon as you start telling them, like showing them, oh, is this what you did? You know, like they they turn away and they don't even look at you. They they are ashamed at what they've done. So they do understand, very similarly to the way children react as well. He then says that most people, while blushing intensely, have their mental powers confused, which is why it makes sense that the blinking happens at the same time. Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind and utter singularly inappropriate remarks. They are often much distressed, they stammer and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases, involuntary twitching of some of the facial muscles may be observed. In the case of a young woman, she said she didn't even know what she was saying. When it was suggested to her that this might be due to her distress from the consciousness that her blushing was noticed, she answered that this could not be the case as she had sometimes felt quite stupid when blushing at a thought in her own room. This is interesting. The fact that even when you blush when you're alone in your own house or your own apartment, even the idea that you can blush just from a thought in your head, it's quite interesting because nobody is really watching you. So therefore, why would there be a need to blush or even to hide the blush or feel ashamed when you're just in your own presence? But perhaps this is this would be a good thing to study or to continue to observe is that it might be the case that there is a part of us that feels shame and shames ourselves when the part that is conscious of itself, because we do have, you know, that part of the brain, we do have that part of the mind that is conscious of itself, and therefore I do think that perhaps in those moments it is that part of the mind that is judging itself and therefore makes itself feel shame, could cause the blushing, even if you are alone in your room. Just the thought of something you did that you regret or that that other part of your mind is making you notice and feel shame. When a person is ashamed or very shy and blushes intensely, his heart beats rapidly and his breathing is disturbed. The explanation lies in the intimate sympathy which exists between the capillary circulation of the surface of the head and face and that of the brain. When the sympathetic nerve is divided on one side of the head, the capillaries on this side are relaxed and become filled with blood, causing the skin to redden and grow hot. And at the same time, the temperature within the cranium on the same side rises. Inflammation of the membranes of the brain leads to the engorgement of the face, ears, and eyes with blood. With persons just beginning to blush, it appears, judging from the bright eyes and lively behavior, that their mental powers are somewhat stimulated. It is only when the blushing is excessive that the mind becomes confused. And maybe this has to do with the intensity of the blush and the feeling, the intensity of the emotion, whether that's embarrassment or shame, it probably has to do with how much shame you are feeling or how embarrassed you are. It's interesting to see how all of this is tied to self-consciousness and how we perceive ourselves as well as the way others perceive us. Because if we really didn't care as much for what we were doing that could be wrong or right in our eyes, if we didn't give so much value to certain people and their opinions about us, perhaps we wouldn't blush as much as we do. I'm trying to think of the last time that I blushed, and I think I was at work, somebody reminded me of something, either something I did or didn't do that was just kind of a silly um little mistake. It wasn't even a big deal. But I remember just feeling myself blushing because now, thanks to the performance piece, I realized that it's easier for me to be conscious when I'm blushing and notice when I'm blushing because I had so much practice during the entire performance that I was able to note which muscles are the ones that actually contract. And now I can tell more easily when I'm blushing because it is something more familiar since I experienced it to such an extent and in this more extreme and exposed way when I did my performance piece that now whenever I do blush, I know when I'm blushing. I can tell. And even though I can't see myself, I can definitely feel it on my face, my cheeks. I know the feeling, the way the tightness in my cheeks and the way it feels, the heat. I can tell the blood is rushing through there. And so I recognize the the sensations and I can tell that I felt embarrassed about or slightly embarrassed about something I did or didn't do or forgot to do. Now I just kind of welcome it. I feel myself blushing and I notice that I'm doing it. I let it just happen. It's something now that I'm okay with. Of course, it would make me blush even more. And I probably would get even more red. And of course, I would get even clumsier in my behavior. So more things would fall, or I'd be more awkward. And it's interesting to see how the mind can recognize or even notice sensations or be conscious of an action or the fact that you are blushing or that you what it feels like to blush. And when you do feel embarrassed, shy or shame, how it does come up instead of the confusion taking over, there are ways you can stop and notice instead of trying to do away with the blushing or keep yourself from blushing. It's just usually probably going to cause the opposite reaction. I do think that the more you try to stop yourself from blushing, the more you will blush. As with anything else, I think it's better to just notice that you are blushing and allow yourself to blush and let it take its course, let it ride that wave until it's finished. It has always been very such a fascinating topic for me. I was so excited to do this episode because I've been waiting for a really long time and I've been doing research on this for a very long time as well. It's something that I I find so interesting. So the times that I do ask my friends, you know, what is it that triggers the blushing? Because for me, I think what I want is that I would like to understand where where the self-consciousness, what part it plays, or what role or function it plays in terms of evolution as well as the development of consciousness. And if it does serve that function, you know, where do we go from here or what what potential, like what are the limits or whether there are limits or not? It's just interesting for me to explore this, and I would love to know more about that connection, not just the mind-body one, because I do think it's interesting that it shows up and it manifests itself physically. I do love the duality of it, how whenever there is something happening in the mind, we are expressing it through our body as well. I just watched a podcast today with Stephen Bartlett on the Diary of a CEO. It is an interview with Jeffrey Hinton, who is known as the godfather of AI. As I listened, of course, they're discussing the benefits of AI in terms of human existence and our future. But I also think it was interesting that Jeffrey Hinton is now discussing the risks of AI. Throughout the podcast, there are conflicting moments where I believe a part of him feels connected to this human part of himself. At the end of the episode, he discusses how, you know, when asked what was the one thing that he would go back in time to change, and he mentions he would like to spend more time with his wife and kids back when he could. And I don't know if that's uh if that has to do with regret or not, because he did mention that he was working a lot and that he didn't actually make enough time to spend with his family. Then at other moments, he discusses the fact that that he's a materialist and that he believes that machines and AIs can experience emotion, and he gives examples. I would recommend watching it if you'd like to listen to the whole conversation because it is an interesting take on the future of AI and the future of humanity. It was interesting to see that struggle even within himself. He kept going back and forth between talking about the risks and how there is a possibility of developing AI in a way that is not a threat, which I don't know if I agree with because I don't think that is possible at this point. I think we're already moving ahead and the way technology is advancing. AI is a tool, and I do think that it, as with anything, it can be used for good and it can be used for bad based on the people whose hands it is in, the intentions of that person. It was interesting to hear the part, especially when he was discussing that examples of the ways AI and machines not only feel emotions, but develop these emotions. He was talking about how the this one robot or one little machine, if it gets if it feels a threat from a bigger machine, it's going to feel afraid and scared and see it as a threat. And supposedly he said that perhaps it is the machine's way of experiencing an adrenaline rush, which these are all terms that we have developed linguistically or verbally, because that is the sensations that we experience in our body, because we as humans are body and mind. We are not just mind. But in the case of these machines or AI, he mentions they have a higher intelligence because he claims that it is better to have mind than to have body because the body is organic and will eventually die. A rot, a mind or intelligence, whether that's data stored in a machine, can never die. He claims that we have solved the issue of impermanence through AI and the machines, because he mentioned an example that if the hardware were to be destroyed, the neural system or neural links, which is what he is known for, that's what he developed, and that is why he's known as the godfather of AI, is that he believed and was able to develop and prove that uh the neural network was the way to develop AI if you take the brain as a as an example. As in, you can develop it based on the human brain by imitating the neural network of the human brain. That is how you can develop AI in a manner that would be successful. So he claims that if the hardware were to be destroyed, you can still replicate it because it would be stored and therefore it would exist forever. I just what I wonder, and I just bring this up because I am curious about people's thoughts on this. They do discuss in the podcast a moment where Stephen asks him what he thinks about the the myths or the the stories going around, you know, people's feelings and beliefs that consciousness, human consciousness is unique because it it's like a spirit that lives within us, that whole, you know, idea that we have the breath of God inside us and there is an essence there that cannot be replicated. And of course, Jeffrey Hinton mentions that he does not agree with that view of the world or of life, because he thinks that by developing machines that are cognitively superior or more in higher intelligence. It was interesting. He mentions that because we don't know what consciousness is necessarily, and I think that's true, like nobody to this day has the answer or figured out what is consciousness or how it develops. No one understands the mind and and nobody understands consciousness either. He did mention that he believes consciousness will be an obsolete word and will not be an accurate description of this concept or idea. I'm curious because he discusses the fact that because they were able to develop these machines that have these neural networks, he claims that they actually work in a much more efficient and faster, much faster way than our human brain works. Because when he mentions an example of when they are making associations and trying to find commonalities between two things, they will consider every little chain reaction, is the word he used. As in when this thing leads to this and that can potentially cause this. He mentions that at one point they did an experiment with this AI where he disconnected it from the internet. So he had now access to the internet. But he asked the AI what is the similarity between the nuclear bomb with a waste pile, and he asks him without using the internet, he asks him to compare the two and see what are the how are they related. And the AI comes up with the fact that what makes them similar is that over time it can produce both can produce heat, and therefore there's that chain reaction. He mentions that the fact that the AI was able to pick that up, the commonality, whereas for a human, when you ask them something like that, not only would it take a long time for them to probably come up with that. I don't know, maybe there are people who would have known the answer or would have seen those similarities, but perhaps it wouldn't have come up as quickly. So clearly it builds on itself, on the information it already has stored in terms of its neural network. It's information that it's already processed and compiled. And I think he mentioned that not only is it just information that has been gathered, but it's compressed and used kind of like building blocks to make more sense of things as they come along. But he did state that we do not know for certain the way that the human mind works. And to this day we don't understand it. We don't know we can see the complexities, but the extent of human consciousness and the way the human neural network creates neural pathways that he said we do not understand yet. We still don't know how each person creates their own neural pathways and builds upon them. But the way they are doing it with the AIs, he claims that it is in a faster, more efficient manner, and therefore this is why AI is growing so quickly and why it is replacing a lot of things that humans have done for so long. He did discuss the different jobs that could become obsolete due to AI. But what I found fascinating was that he didn't really understand human consciousness or the development of it and why we shape our thinking in a certain manner that functions well for us throughout our lives. Even from personal experience, I do think that it is always possible to then go and change that, to change the way we perceive things, our ways of thinking, our associations can be changed. I do think that our relationship to anything can definitely be changed, and it does have to do with awareness and becoming conscious of that pattern. I think there's a lot of work that's being done right now, whether it's in psychology, in science, or even through practices such as, you know, yoga and meditation, even just based on my own personal journey, I am working on bettering my relationship to myself right now. I am in a a group where our purpose is to find healthier ways of relating to ourselves and nurturing that relationship and finding ways to to help it grow in a healthy manner. And based on that, what I've noticed even changes within myself recently. I have noticed that my head hurts whenever I feel I'm going through a lot of internal changes, and I often wonder if it is due to the way I am processing something, perhaps changing the way I see things or relate to things in my life, even the way I relate to myself has slowly started to shift. And consciousness, whether you like that word or not, it's it's a very interesting thing because as you do something, that part of you which is unexplainable, I don't know what other name to call it, other than that self-aware part of yourself, the conscious part of your mind that is observing itself. I do think that that that can be used as a tool. And when you are doing something that you no longer enjoy or you like or that causes you. Stress or anxiety, just pausing and noticing your own pattern of thinking, just observing yourself go there in your mind. It's almost as if that part of your mind is watching the other part act out and do things. And as it watches, it's learning and it's growing. I don't know how else to explain it. It's very fascinating because I've been wanting to explore where the conscience comes from. Uh, conscience derives from the same word as consciousness, I believe. We do see that a lot, and I know in the Bible it it is something that is mentioned a lot. I know that Peterson has talked about it because of Pinocchio and how Jiminy Cricket represents the conscience and is symbolic of this part of ourselves. And I know Peterson has talked about the fact that the conscience is only ever slightly ahead of the rest of you, which I think is interesting because if it is slightly ahead, it's this weird dynamic that exists within yourself or between yourself where that part of you is teaching yourself and learning at the same time. So it's this push and pull with yourself, like a dance that you're involved in with yourself that is propelling you to move forward and develop or evolve. It's extremely hard to decipher or understand how it's happening or even why it happens, but I can definitely recognize it when it's happening. So I I do notice when that part of me, the conscience or conscious part of my mind, is observing the rest of my mind take an action or a thought and play with it, kind of juggle it. It's almost like uh, not like a game, but like watching a juggler juggle these thoughts. And so it's like that other part of me that does take the action. I guess I could call it the actor in this situation, because it's acting on life or on reality, whereas the other part is the observer, and it is just the self-reflective, the conscience, conscious part of ourselves that is just observing and taking note, self-awareness. I guess it's that part of ourselves that is aware. That other part of us, the one juggling the different thoughts and then picking one and saying, This is what I'm gonna do, or this is what this is the thought that's gonna take over right now. It's just interesting to see that inner play in your own head, and while it's happening, to watch yourself thinking, to see yourself in that entire battle of the mind, or even as Jeffrey mentioned, theater of the mind where one part of the mind is observing, but taking note, it's as if the conscience or the part that is aware of itself is taking note and learning from that, but at the same time, it needs the part that is also acting on reality because it's learning from the mistakes that it's making. I would love to do more research and find out how this is happening, why it happens, how it develops over time. I mean, I have read a lot of books about child development, and I do think it's fascinating to see how children begin to make sense of the world, like how they create meaning in their mind and start making sense of the world through symbols and these representations and how those function to help the child eventually develop this discernment for when they are dealing with more adult or realistic situations in the real world. But the representations themselves have they play a part and a role in the development of consciousness. And therefore, I think that the associations every person develops almost as if it was their own map of the world. I do think that everyone has this map they've created based on these symbols that patterns that have come up. I think we have these symbols, these associations we make with certain things or shapes or figures, people, things, places that not only give our life meaning, but help us learn from life as well. It's almost as if we are going through life and we encounter things, and based on what works and what doesn't work through our actions or through our failures or mistakes, we are shaping our reality and our consciousness. And therefore, it becomes this map that will sort of guide us through life. It guides us through familiar areas and through unfamiliar ones as well. But it does create these roadmaps with which we can navigate the world in a certain way, I wouldn't say in an easier way, because I'm sure that someone else's map is going to be very different than yours. Everyone's map is going to be very different than yours. And therefore, navigating your own map based on the symbols on your map is going to lead you in a very different direction than other people because they have different symbols that they are basing their navigation on. Consciousness builds upon itself. So it is as if the mind is building on itself. So I had once written that I I wanted to write a film that tells a story of the mind by the way in which it will be edited. It will create on top of itself, then delete as it sees fit, and the viewer will only see what is processed by that mind. We do not get an objective view of the situations, we only get that person's interpretations of it. So the things that happened to that person that led them to the present continually play in the mind, like a film inside that mind. And the things that stay in that mind, the things that resonate, the sounds, images that we find important, they have a tendency to stay with us and repeat in our mind. Just like the patterns we repeat in life and the the way we live our habits and daily rituals, routines. They are repetitive, unique, quotidian, and monotonous. Everything in nature is an echo. We are all echoes in the universe that lasts a few seconds. Echoes of thought and feelings. Then we disappear. Maybe it can be edited as an echo in echoes and have certain things repeat, give each repetition a meaning. What I think is that we build upon our life just as the mind builds upon its thoughts. The function of nature, of the brain, of life, of history is an echo. It is like the ripples in a lake, and people claim that energy is the same, that everything in nature creates ripples. Based on that idea that I had written down of the mind building upon its own thoughts and upon itself, it's just an interesting thought to consider because consciousness, when we think of the way it grows or the way it develops, at least in my life, the way I think of consciousness, it's this observation of yourself, and then there's the action, and then there's observation, action. It is like an expansion and then a contraction, an expansion and then contraction. So it's as if it's a type of dance with yourself where you are constantly pushing against your own walls and limits to understand yourself and to grow and to evolve. And you do that by making the mistakes that you make, by living and doing things and then learning from them, there's no other way. Blushing is definitely tied to consciousness because when we blush, there is that element of embarrassment and shame. I do feel that as we become conscious of what we feel is inadequate or inappropriate, or or even noticing that we even feel that way, or that we are feeling shame, and just noticing the shame is enough to question it. I'll mention an example for me. So now that time has passed since that performance piece that I did at the Performance Art Festival, now that I'm in therapy and sober, I look back on that performance piece and I realize that, you know, even in my writing and the research I'm doing, there will be moments when I'm just free writing and I realize that that a lot of my shame was actually coming from myself. And that the more I notice my shame, when I feel shame, because my therapist mentioned something that was very interesting to me. She mentioned that we can be made to feel shame, but that shame itself is not an emotion, it is an action shaming somebody. When you feel shame, there must be somebody doing the shaming. And that really blew my mind when I heard that because I had never even questioned who could be doing the shaming. If it isn't coming from a direct person saying some comment to make you feel ashamed, or you should be ashamed because of this, you did this. If it isn't coming from another person, an actual person directly telling you, then where is it coming from? And I thought it was very interesting to note that for me, when I started asking myself that, and even having that part of my mind just start noticing when shame would come up. Not only was I seeing, okay, what triggered it, but more importantly, who is shaming me in that moment. I realized that it was myself. Even looking back at the performance piece, the reason I blushed when I would get a compliment, the reason that that would make me blush in particular, and I don't know if this would make other people blush necessarily. I sat down to write about the fact that it made me feel shame because it came from a place of unworthiness. And I personally realized that it was my self-worth that I was tying to this idea and the reason I was the one doing the shaming when something would happen in a situation where I would feel shame, it was happening because I had a belief throughout my life, I guess since childhood, that I was unworthy of anything good or good things or nice things or being loved. I was unworthy of receiving praise, compliments. And I've talked about this with my therapists, and it's interesting to see that this all does kind of come from a place of you know, an environment where perhaps my parents didn't know how to love themselves and how to validate themselves and how to take care of themselves. So I didn't have a good example of this growing up, of these this potential, and I didn't have an example of how to take care of myself emotionally or how to self-regulate. Now that I'm aware that I have this belief of being unworthy, that's usually the first step of becoming aware in order to make some kind of change. Even just becoming aware of a pattern is what helps you start to shift that thinking. The neural network, the pathway, you can create new pathways as soon as you start to become aware of a different option. In this case, I realize that I could change the thoughts that come up when I am shaming myself because that's the action that is happening. That one part of my mind is shaming the rest of me. And I could slowly start to shift that pattern of thinking by just noticing when it comes up and realizing that I can choose to believe it or choose to believe something different. And as thoughts come up about myself, and this is all tied into self-perception and how I perceive myself, which of course connects to how others perceive me, because I do believe that the way you view yourself, the way you interact with yourself, the relationship you have with yourself is what determines how well you can relate to others and how deep a connection you can make with another person is based on how deep your connection with yourself is. And I do think that by just noticing my own thoughts and pausing and taking inventory sort of of what I do when I think this, and noticing when I am shaming myself, when I'm judging myself, when I'm criticizing myself, talking down to myself, or insulting myself. Just noticing these things has been mind-blowing because then I can see that these are all thoughts that I don't have to incorporate. I can think them and watch them as I would watch a movie or a video and not internalize them or not pick them for my life or for my decision if I'm in a situation and I am about to pick an action or make, you know, some kind of decision. The thoughts that come up, I don't have to accept them. I can see them and say, I don't agree with this, or I don't want it for my life, or I don't accept it today. So you get to decide whether you do accept the thought or not, and if it's beneficial in your life, and if it's actually moving you forward, if you're if it's helping in your life some way, and you get to see the way it plays out. If you do pick one that is more negative, and you let it run its course and you watch how it plays out, and you observe yourself and how you are reacting to yourself and to those thoughts that you are allowing or accepting or not accepting, and you're just observing yourself and watching yourself and see what works and what doesn't. So I believe that this is how consciousness functions in a way to an extent, at least in humans. It has been a great experience to be able to watch my relationship with myself develop. The way I relate to myself has completely changed, it just entirely changed. I don't even know how I feel about it. In a way, it makes me feel at peace and calm, stable. But at the same time, it's extremely different to how I was thinking before. And so something that is different can sometimes just be very unfamiliar and uncomfortable and weird. It's just been more than anything fun and interesting to to see consciousness do its thing and explore itself, play off of itself and grow and develop. And it's but it does, of course, make me want to understand it even more. And and I think in life, for me personally, I think there's no specific purpose other than to have this dynamic with myself and to watch it allow it to grow and see how it manifests itself in this world. Because I what I was telling my therapist is that I have also seen how the more I change internally, the more it also comes out in pours into my reality through my art. And I've seen how it it bleeds into my life in these different ways. Um, in my art, I I have been working on a script that is a representation of these ideas playing out in a more symbolic manner. It is kind of imitating that idea, that concept of you know, contracting and expanding the way consciousness does and the way the mind behaves, and I am implementing it, I'm putting it into my art and watching how that is expressed through through writing or through painting or through any of the other art forms that I do. It's been very fun to watch myself explore it and allow it to come out and to because it is all a part of me. And so my consciousness not only is what I'm experiencing, my five senses, you know, what I'm thinking, how I'm processing the way I take in the world, but it's also reflecting back by expressing myself through my art. So the things that I'm processing and trying to understand and internalizing as I'm going through it. So the things that I do not understand, like everything that I still have not yet learned or solved, they're stuck in my consciousness and I'm working through them. I'm working them out in my mind, in my subconscious, through my dreams, as well as through my art. And so when it comes out, it is something that I don't quite understand. And even just allowing, allowing for it to not make sense. Even the realization that I don't have to understand something is a brand new thought for me and a brand new concept that I've had to accept. I told my therapist that it has not been easy to just allow myself to be. The act of just being and not having an answer, and to feel like I don't have to know where it is I'm going or where something is going, or a thought, even a thought that I don't understand, I don't have to follow it. I can try to follow it through, but I don't need the answer. There is no urgency to understand a concept or to resolve something that I don't understand or that I don't know. So even in my art, I'm I'm working on allowing myself to explore things and to be curious about them and to allow them that space to evolve and to grow. And in life, I'm trying to do that as well to just let things happen the way they will, to let it evolve as it will, and not try to put a label or name on anything, in the sense of not try to box something. In not try to explain something away or resolve something, but just kind of letting things breathe within me when I don't understand something or when I don't even know what is driving an action, especially regarding art, you know, a project or an idea, and to just let it take its course and follow it and observe it more than anything is back to that idea of just noticing the mind watching itself interact and relate to the world and relate to myself. I think that's what consciousness is to me at the moment. I would like to keep exploring and finding that out and researching. So to take it back to the to Darwin's chapter, he mentions if there exists an intimate sympathy between the capillary circulation and that part of the brain on which our mental powers depend, and in the skin of the face, it is not surprising that the moral causes which induce intense blushing should likewise induce independently of their own disturbing influence much confusion of the mind. The nature of the mental states which induce blushing consists of shyness, shame, and modesty, the essential element in all being self attention. Many reasons can be assigned for believing that originally self attention directed to personal appearance in relation to the opinion of others was the exciting cause, the same effect being subsequently produced through the force of association by self attention in relation to moral conduct. It is not the simple act of reflecting on our own appearance, but the thinking of what others think of us which excites a blush. In absolute solitude, the most sensitive person would be quite indifferent about their appearance. We feel blame and disapprobation more acutely than approbation, and consequently depreciatory remarks or ridicule, whether of our appearance or conduct, causes us to blush much more readily than does praise. Except in my case, which I already explained that for me it was the opposite for some reason. Well, both would make me blush, probably. But undoubtedly, praise and admiration are highly efficient. A girl blushes when a man gazes intently at her, though she may know perfectly well that he is not depreciating her. Many children blush when they are praised. Nothing makes a shy person blush more than any remark, no matter how slight on his or her personal appearance. It is sufficient to stare hard at some people to make them blush. Children at a very early age do not blush, nor do they show those other signs of self-consciousness which generally accompany blushing. And it is one of their chief charms that they think nothing of what others think of them. At this early age, they will stare at a stranger with a fixed gaze and unblinking eyes, as on an inanimate object, in a manner which older people cannot imitate. Of all parts of the body, the face is the most considered and regarded, as is natural from its being the chief seat of expression and the source of the voice. It is also the chief seat of beauty and ugliness, and throughout the world is the most ornamented. The face, therefore, will have been subjected during many generations to much closer and more earnest self-attention than any other part of the body. We can understand why it is the most liable to blush. I'm sure all of you have experienced situations where you got a pimple on your nose or on your, you know, face somewhere. It's the worst thing in the world, and you know you're about to have a presentation in front of people, or you're about to do a performance or something, and then you have this big sit on your face, and you cannot hide it because your face is the one thing everyone looks at, as opposed to when you get a pimple on, you know, on your arm or your shoulder, or somewhere where people won't notice it as much. Clearly, the face is the chief seat of expression. That's what everyone looks at when they're talking to you. We use the eyes for approval and we we seek out people's eyes as a way of connection. So the face is the main point of attention, and therefore it makes sense that it's the most liable to blush. I also wanted to bring it back to how Darwin also mentions the moral aspect of it. I think that also connects to consciousness and the conscience because I think it's just interesting to explore this idea of where morality comes from, whether it's imposed by society or whether it is something that is also sort of self-imposed. I think everyone has their own moral compass and their own moral code that they live their lives by. And yes, we have religion and we have churches and people who claim or who decide on certain rules that benefit society. It's hard to match every single moral code or moral rule, not only in the country but in the world, you know, every place has its own standards of conduct, and every place has sort of a moral code or moral rules that people go by based on what keeps that society from completely annihilating themselves. You can wonder about what things were imposed by society and what things are imposed by your family, by your parents, by people closest to you, or by yourself. I do believe that, and this is just my personal opinion, is that when you take in what others say and you just act based on someone else's moral code or the opinions of others, and when you just do what others would want you to do, there is no freedom in that. And I also think that choosing to do, let's just say, the quote unquote right thing in that situation, would it really be a right thing if you just feel the obligation to do it, or whether it's coming from a place of genuine desire to do that thing for its own sake, just because you believe in it and you think that is the more suitable choice of action or option as opposed to this sense of morality being imposed on by society. I have a lot of friends that have been in prison or in jail. I had an uncle that was in prison. Speaking to them and having conversations with them, it's it does make you wonder how people perceive morality, especially when it's imposed on from the outside, from society, because they will suffer the consequences, so they are stuck in prison or jail, and some of them will be let out and will end up back in jail multiple times. Some will be there because of their sentences for much, much longer periods of time, and therefore I do agree that there should be, you know, consequences for people's actions, especially when it does regard, you know, very extreme behavior such as rape or murder. It is interesting that the consequences when people have to pay for their actions, as they say, when people have to pay for their actions, are they really learning? Are they choosing to see it as actually something that they believe, or are they just going through the motions because they know they have to, because it was something imposed on by society from the outside? Something I realized while I was in AA was the difference between knowing that you've done something that isn't the ideal form of behavior that can trigger feelings, whether they are feelings of shame or guilt or just feeling bad for something you've done. Perhaps that is why those words exist and why those concepts exist of regret, guilt, shame. As I went through an inventory of things I had done, what I realized was that it was no longer coming from a place of this is morally wrong just because it's in the Bible, or this is morally wrong because lying is bad, or cheating is bad, or violence is bad. What was more beneficial to me was being able to see my own actions and then asking myself how I felt about them. Once I was able to look at things I had done to other people, and then being able to ask myself, if I was in a similar situation in the future, do I really want to feel this shame again? Do I really want to feel this guilt or regret repeatedly? Is this something I want to just keep repeating? Or do I want to change this pattern of behavior for its own sake because I know that I don't enjoy how I feel after this happens. And not only that, but as soon as I started turning it towards myself, it does change your perspective and it also in turn helps you realize that if you choose to do good, it is no longer based on this false sense of goodness of oh, I'm going to do it just because it's the quote unquote right thing to do. I genuinely want to do this, I want to help this person, or I I want to tell the truth because I feel good when I tell the truth. And it is no longer just about putting on this mask of goodness or even playing this role of benevolent person. Everything is a paradox. I really do think that. Because what's so weird to me is that the more I did something based on how I would feel afterwards, the more genuine it was. And not only that, but then I noticed that it was also the highest good, even in terms of the other person. And it's this paradox, when you think I'm just gonna do something for that other person's sake, it can turn around and like slap you in the face and turn out to be worse when the intentions are not understood or when they are not a personal thing. And I've come to realize the importance of checking in with myself when I do something, and that has actually taken away a lot of my inability to sleep and my anxiety because I no longer have to sit with the regret of something I did in earlier in the day or two days ago, or the guilt or shame of something that happened. Occasionally I'll still encounter small moments of shame in particular, that one more so than others. What I have noticed now is that it is all connected to myself. And usually when I do something towards another person, it usually has to do with myself. There's something that was wrong with me, whether I was hungry, sad, or tired and I reacted a certain way, or even if it's lying or doing something that I know is not the best choice, not even just because, oh, it might hurt the other person. If I lie, it's just not nice for the other person, but more so I came to the conclusion that when I lie, I'm hurting myself primarily. I'm hurting myself because later it's gonna come back to haunt me in many, many different ways, whether it's keeping up that facade or that lie and keeping track of exactly what I said, but also the feelings of it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel correct towards myself, even. Morality is just a a very big cave to you know dive into. It's interesting that with blushing, morality comes up because there are different things that bring up feelings of shame. It's just interesting to pick at it, to pick at morality and see is it being imposed from the outside or is this also something that I can impose on myself? So the reason I bring that up is that when morality is imposed on yourself by yourself, you feel responsible for it in a different way. It's it's now directly connected to you, and the morality is coming from a place of doing good for its own sake, and no longer from just this idea of these are things I quote unquote should do. This is what society deems acceptable, and so when you stray from those things and you do end up blushing and feeling shame for something, I believe it changes the dynamic if these are moral standards imposed by yourself, imposed by you, because then the responsibility falls on yourself and you feel that the person you owe this to is yourself, and since you are the one that is aware of what you do and how you do it and how you think, it shifts your entire perspective on the matter. Because if you are the one that's aware of your intention and you do something and you realize that it's because I wanted to make this person feel this way, or I wanted to do this as a retaliation or whatever it can be the case, but when you are aware of it, there is no more hiding from it. You can find ways to hide from it, which I say this because I feel like I had done that in in my past, and now I can see the ways that I no longer have to fall back on those tendencies, and I can bring up an issue, be completely honest with myself, and admit to myself and take responsibility for the fact that I thought this and I carried it out, and I chose to take that action, and I am aware it was not the best action, and all you can do is notice it, observe it, see yourself, even feel the consequences of that playing out the way it did, and then you learn from it, which is consciousness growing and developing by you making these mistakes and also forgiving yourself for not having d'est thing you could do, or not knowing any better at the moment, or even just forgiving yourself that you did choose to be selfish and you did choose something that was not the highest good or the most beneficial option for everyone in the situation, and so morality is just uh a very large, heavy topic that I can rant on for a long time about, which I will try not to do. I'm going to go back to the book. In all parts of the world, persons who feel shame for some moral delinquency are apt to avert, bend down, or hide their faces, independently of any thought about their personal appearance. The object can hardly be to conceal their blushes, for the face is averted or hidden under circumstances which exclude any desire to conceal shame, as when guilt is fully confessed and repented of. So that other part of my Myself didn't feel rejected or thrown to the side because there was some action that I did that where maybe another person was more important. It is interesting to see kind of the direction that shame kind of can take and how it gets triggered. Let me go back to the book. Shyness, this odd state of mind, often called false shame or mauve, appears to be one of the most efficient of all the causes of blushing. Shyness seems to depend on sensitivity to the opinion, whether good or bad, of others, especially with respect to external appearance. Strangers neither know nor care anything about our conduct or character, but they may and often do criticize our appearance. Hence, shy people are particularly apt to be shy and to blush in the presence of strangers. The consciousness of anything peculiar or even new in the dress or any slight blemish on the person and more especially on the face, points which are likely to attract the attention of strangers makes the shy intolerably shy. On the other hand, in those cases in which conduct and not personal appearance is concerned, we are much more apt to be shy in the presence of acquaintances whose judgment we in some degree deem valuable or important than that of strangers. Shyness, as the derivation of the word indicates in various languages, is closely related to fear, yet it is distinct from fear in the ordinary sense. A shy person dread the notice of strangers, but can hardly be said to be afraid of them. He may be as bold as a hero in battle, and yet have no self-confidence about trifles in the presence of strangers. Almost everyone is extremely nervous when first addressing a public assembly, and most men remain so throughout their lives. But this appears to depend on the consciousness of a great coming exertion with its associated effects on the system rather than on shyness. Shyness comes on at a very early age. Shyness and real shame are exhibited in the eyes of young children before they have acquired the power of blushing. Moral causes guilt. It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush. It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face. A man may feel thoroughly ashamed at having told a small falsehood without blushing. But if he even suspects that he is detected, he will instantly blush, especially if detected by one whom he reveres, and that's an important point. On the other hand, a man may be convinced that God witnesses all his actions, and he may feel deeply conscious of some fault and pray for forgiveness, but this will not ever excite a blush. The explanation of this difference between the knowledge by God and man of our actions lies in man's disapprobation of immoral conduct being somewhat akin to nature, to his depreciation of our personal appearance, so that through association both lead to similar results, whereas the disapprobation of God brings up no such association. Many a person has blushed intensely when accused of some crime, though completely innocent of it. Even the thought that others think that we have made an unkind or stupid remark is amply sufficient to cause a blush. Although we know all the time that we have been completely misunderstood. An action may be meritorious or of an indifferent nature, but a sensitive person, if he suspects that others take a different view of it, will blush. For instance, a lady by herself may give money to a beggar without a trace of a blush, but if others are present and she doubts whether they approve or suspects that they think she is influenced by the display, she will blush. The rules of etiquette always refer to conduct in the presence of or towards others. They have no necessary connection with the moral sense and are often meaningless. As they depend on the fixed custom of our equals and superiors, whose opinion we highly regard, they are considered almost as binding as are the laws of honor to a gentleman. Consequently, the breach of the laws of etiquette, that is, any impoliteness or gauchery, any impropriety or an inappropriate remark, though quite accidental, will cause the most intense blushing of which man is capable. Even the recollection of such an act after an interval of many years will make the whole body tingle. So strong also is the power of sympathy that a sensitive person will sometimes blush at a flagrant breach of etiquette by a perfect stranger, though the act may in no way concern her. That's happened to me a few times where I'm watching someone on the street or some people at a restaurant, and something that they do can sometimes make me blush or feel like, oh, not guilty, but more so like that feeling of, you know, you not only sympathize, but empathize with them at this extreme degree where you, you know, you are blushing at something they did because of their behavior was so inappropriate that you think the people that are watching blush just from that sense of that was so inappropriate. It's almost that feeling that you can imagine yourself being that person behaving in that way and having everyone watch you and see what you've done and judge you. And so, therefore, I think the blushing can happen just from watching someone do something incorrect. Modesty implies humility, and we often judge this by people being greatly pleased and blushing at slight praise, or by being annoyed at praise which seems to them too high according to their own humble standard of themselves. Modesty frequently relates to acts of indelicacy. He who is modest and easily blushes at acts of this nature does so because they are breaches of a firmly and wisely established etiquette. Comes from what I mentioned earlier about like imposed standards by society. This is shown by the derivation of the word modest from modus, a measure or standard of behavior. A blush due to this form of modesty is apt to be intense because it generally relates to the opposite sex. Some persons flush up at any sudden disagreeable recollection. The most common cause being the sudden remembrance of not having done something for another person which had been promised. What will he think of me? Almost every strong emotion, such as anger or great joy, acts on the heart and causes the face to redden. Some people blush in the dark and in solitude. When a blush is excited in solitude, the cause almost always relates to the thoughts of others about us, to acts done in their presence or suspected by them, or when we reflect on what others would have thought of us had they known of the act. Nevertheless, one or two of my informants, this is Darwin talking, believe that they have blushed from shame at acts in no way relating to others. This is an interesting point because there is that theory in a lot of the research I've done when it does come to blushing that that it really only has to do with the way others perceive us. Blushing mostly happens when we think others know of the things we've done and when we become aware that they know of our behaviors or actions. To have him express this last point of how he did know a few people that blushed from shame at acts that did not relate to other people. So that I would like to explore more because I think that it does create this other direction that one can further study. Is shame based on the way others think of us, our self-image and the way we believe we are perceived by others, or is shame also based on the way we view ourselves and the health of that dynamic that you do have with yourself? Cause I think it's interesting to see that, yeah, people I'm sure can feel guilty when they've done something but not blush, and only when they find out that someone they really admire or care about finds out about something they did, whether they were money laundering or stealing or lying about something, that's when they feel the the shame. I I don't think that's the case. I personally believe that shame happens even when you're alone by yourself. That is why that is why I think that people talk about how like, oh, they lie awake at night thinking and ruminating about things they did throughout the day. I don't think that would be such a popular idea or phrase if it wasn't true to an extent. A pretty common thing that happens to people. I mean, with the exception of serial killers, or I know they've done studies on the brains of serial killers, and according to science, there's they've done scans and they're missing that part of the brain that makes them feel regret or shame. But what I wonder about that is, and this is something I would like to research, even for these serial killers that are lacking that part of the brain, is it something that was there and diminished over time, even physically, because the mind and body are so well connected? Is it something that did not develop correctly and therefore was non-existent in their brain? Or is it something that an ability they had before, and slowly over time it eroded, or they managed to kill it off or destroy it inside them by continually repeating patterns of behavior or actions that led them to do away with that sense of shame in their brain. And I am curious if it is possible. Because I know they've said that, you know, there's a part of the brain that lights up when you're feeling, you know, different emotions, there's you know, different parts of your brain light up. So I'd be curious to conduct a study or to even research this, you know, whether these serial killers have conducted their life in a way that they set aside certain neural pathways and stopped using certain pathways and therefore they became eliminated. Just as I mean, I've heard other psychologists and neuroscientists talk about how when when you practice a routine, when you repeat something over and over, it creates a new pathway. That's a way to like establish a pathway. You can also undo neural pathways that already exist in your brain. That's something I want to find out, so I'll keep exploring it. I will stop the episode there. I have not finished discussing blushing, there's so much to it. This is a topic that I have been waiting to talk about and that I'm so excited about, and that's why I've gone on a tangent a few times and have just kind of gone on and on. But I feel it's such an important topic, and I'd love to share this with you, and that's why I will do multiple parts to this series of blushing, continue my research, and then share it with you all. So thank you for listening. I will see you next time.