It was a warm October morning when I realized for the first time in my life how painful it would be to be a shy person. There I was, aged nine, in the classroom, just after my classmates and I had read a story called “Malagueta Pepper John.” It featured the story of a child who instantly blushed whenever he went through an embarrassing situation in his miserable life. The problem was that that morning, I too had just had a sort of shameful experience. Don't ask me what it was; I just know that within minutes of it happening, a classmate started calling me “Malagueta Pepper John” and everyone in that entire room of stone-hearted kids followed suit. It opened my eyes. My perception of myself was so distorted and vague that I had never realized this kind of reaction in myself before. I was just like the character John in that children's story; every embarrassing situation I have faced in my life has immediately made me blush. From that point on, I started to notice how the “process” was happening. It was actually kind of funny, in a way, because...