Shame begins with a clean sheet.
It wakes before the owner and settles as a cold stain upon the chest. This is not the repentance of a sinner – it is something far worse: the physiological reaction of one who has remained intact. In a world where matter is falling to pieces, wholeness looks like looting. A hot shower is the appropriation of someone else’s water. A peaceful sleep is desertion. Any living body is illicit property.
Textbooks call this a syndrome and offer treatment. But it is not a disease. It is the only honest response of an organism to the absurdity of its own survival.
The imitation of life has become the primary skill. One can sit at a table, eat, laugh in the appropriate moments, and hold a glass so that one’s hand does not give them away. But inside, a different map is constantly running. On it are the coordinates of the front, the distance to the explosion, and a countdown for those who will not survive until morning, while wine flows down one’s throat. This is the new topography of consciousness: to live on two maps simultaneously and pretend that only one exists.
The person who knew how to dissolve in joy remained in the time before 2022. They were too naive for this gravity. Now, the knowledge of one’s own vulnerability is stitched into the muscles. This is not mourning for oneself – it is an acknowledgment of fact: the former lightness has become impossible.
One can try to turn this shame into a virtue, convincing oneself that pain proves humanity and that the crack within is a sign of belonging. It is a more beautiful story.
The truth is more repulsive: the body continues to live. It wants to eat, to sleep, and to find pleasure without asking permission from those who can no longer feel anything. True shame is not moral. It is physiological. It is shame for the cells that continue to divide, while others are flying apart along with the concrete.
This state will not pass after victory. It has eaten its way into the structure of the personality – the habit of holding this absurdity within oneself and not stopping. The body does not ask if you are ready. It simply continues to breathe, because it knows no other way.