embarrassment
"Embarrassment is like dumping glue into the filing cabinet so all the word-cards get stuck and we can't find a substitute word at all. And, explaining "fuzzy brain" to doctors is like we've crawled into the filing cabinet drawer and slammed the drawer shut--docs usually don't understand because "a symptom" ."
"Embarrassment is like an extreme sport, only instead of using heights or speed to coax a biological buzz it uses shame"
"Embarrassment is like an alarm that goes off whenever there may be an opportunity to learn something new. Yes, it can be a false alarm, but let's make that call only after we scrutinize the situation. To give you an example:"
"Embarrassment is like death. There's a correlation that embarrassment stimulates the same response in our brains as being ostracized from a tribe, much like our ancestors long ago (read more here)."
"In this case, intentional embarrassment is like an immunization shot: it introduces a small dose of the negative stuff to prepare the system to cope with a larger dose of embarrassment. A significant risk of intentional embarrassment is the same as that of immunization: what is considered to be a small dose may produce ..."
"Embarrassment is like an ocean wave: It throws you and those near you into the earth, but you come up embracing and laughing."
"Our embarrassment is like an abyss. Whatever we give away is so much less than what we receive. Perhaps this is the meaning of dying: to give one's whole self away"
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.