Connect the Dots | "Vulnerable"

I’ve got a distinct feeling all of this is for show. In the attempt to make myself vulnerable, when talking about a drawing I made, whose whole message is vulnerability, I can’t shake the feeling that this whole blog is gonna be one self-serving ego boost through the disguise of showing only what I want to show. 

The message in the piece is simple, behind every strength is a weakness and if we don’t acknowledge this, we are pretending to be better than we are when, in fact, vulnerability is probably the key to unlocking healthy relationships and a healthy mind state. So, in my mind, I was researching the idea of how to introduce this concept, without being preachy. I can’t tell you what we should be doing and what is healthy without following suit, otherwise I’m just a hypocrite who expects others to do what he wouldn’t.

So through that the solution offered itself; make a blog where you open up and become vulnerable. Tell your insecurities, expose your fears, traumas, bad sides, complexes, basically expose yourself. That idea terrified me, for a good week. In between thinking about this I watched a documentary about Machiavelli and I revisited his book The Prince, which just deepened the sense that this whole idea was stupid and naive. 

Not to mention that all of this feels like a front. Because I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t expose anything really profound about myself, I don’t consider some of the events or memories appropriate for the whole world to know and I didn’t want to involve anyone’s name into this because I don’t feel it fair at all.

The second thing, which really bothered me, was that this whole concept was flawed, because it didn’t feel genuine. Not just in the sense that i wouldn’t be completely honest in my exposé, but that the whole thing would be me trying to connect to my audience, a strategy I’m sure most marketing departments would tell you is the right way to go. The brands that work are the brands which know themselves…you know, like the sign at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi: Know Thyself. 

That immediately felt insincere, a manipulative tactic to build a persona, a cult of personality. The thing is, me writing this now is just a deeper layer to this whole concept, because now my perception can be (through the spectre of marketing) someone who is anti-establishment, anti-new media, anti-capitalist, woke, aware and real. No matter how I twist this or how truthful and open I am, it will never feel sincere.

But another nagging feeling is that I’m attempting my best not to open up. Everything you read to here could be an exercise where I am trying to deflect and rationalise why I shouldn’t be vulnerable because I’m still fucking terrified of doing that. Why though?

Well, mostly in fear of being ridiculed. Being laughed at is horrible but especially when you really expose that which you hold dearest. To someone who has a very bad self-image, it can be devastating. Yes, I have a very bad perception of myself, it is skewed and unrealistic. I don’t like seeing myself in photos or in the mirror. I enjoy life without knowing I actually have a face and a body people can look at. As soon as I realise that, my whole demeanour changes and I become horribly insecure in a second. You’ll only notice that when you talk to me in person.

A psychological endeavour would be necessary to come to the bottom of where this insecurity stems from, but this is exactly the part I was referring to before. I don’t really want the world knowing. I barely want anyone to know, limiting that only to those nearest. But then, fuck this blog, right? What’s the point here, you are going deep but not deep enough. You are edging but never truly revealing. 

Hold up, is that the point of being vulnerable? To just open the closet and let the skeletons run amok? Not really, that seems to be a bad decision, almost a desperate one. The point of vulnerability is to be aware of yourself, to see and understand your weaknesses and build and repair where necessary. The key here is awareness and acceptance. 

Okay, let’s try this again. 

Where do I even start???  Well…somewhere.

I am highly critical of myself, to the point of being self-deprecative at times. I look at anything I do and constantly find flaws, rarely acknowledging the positives. Have I worked to combat this? Yes, by becoming aware of when this is happening and forcing myself to build a good/bad list in my head. I try to objectively assess what is bad about “insert almost anything here” but also raise awareness of what is good.

Okay, good, what else…

There is a part of me which consistently feels loneliness. Like a consistent alienation or detachment which can never seem to connect to anyone… Specifically here I am talking about people. Sometimes, when I found someone who showed me love, I became obsessive about hanging with that person because it filled a hole which was never fulfilled before. That can be extremely overbearing, especially if you have experienced this from the other side. So how do I deal with this? Well, again, anytime this happens I try to relax and become aware of it, bring it to the surface and consciously calm myself down. To realise in the moment that this person isn’t the answer because the problem doesn’t lay in them and to become aware of how heavy this load can be, for anybody. I feel the problem in this goes back to the self-image thing, so any time these feelings of dependancy arise, I need to reprimand myself of what is going on and that seeking validation and value in this way is extremely unhealthy.

We are getting somewhere with this. At least one more thing.

Somehow everything seems to stem from the self-perception problem. Another one is comfort eating. Whenever I felt down or bad about myself, an immediate fix of dopamine was sugar. In the past, I used to consume it in vast quantities. So what have I done in this direction? Again, the key thing, I become aware of when this is happening. I try to calm down and really assess am I even hungry? Am I doing this to fill a hole again? And is sugar really the best way to fill that hole, if that hole happens to be the stomach. Of course, the answer is no. So through that I “force” myself to eat more healthy, to be aware of what I am ingesting and how it is affecting my body and my mind.

See, that last sentence feels so new-age(-ish) and pretentious. I threw up in my mouth a little bit reading that back. It’s true though, even if it sounds corny.

You know what, these three examples I think are enough. The whole point in this drawing was to raise awareness of vulnerability. Allowing ourselves to be open, especially…especially to ourselves. Sometimes faking it can be beneficial, I can’t deny that, but most of the time being open is the surest way to a better, happier and a more fulfilled existence. 

We all pretend, most of the time. What we see about each other is going through so many filters, we barely get to see what really is. We feel like we need to be the wolf: efficient, aggressive at times, independent and strong, in order to survive. All I am aiming to say here is that being the wolf is fine, as long as you acknowledge the deer inside you; the scared and scarred child which never grew up. Taking care of that side is what will truly make us wolfish.

So after that essay on the necessities of vulnerability, let’s switch to shameless self-promo. Do you want a print?