[working definitions] vulnerability

[kaberett]

I've been noticing, working my way through Brené Brown's books, that many of the ways in which she defines or exemplifies vulnerability are just... not intuitive to me. They don't stick; they're an active effort to think my way through every single time I try to engage with the concepts involved. "To be vulnerable is to be capable of being hurt; to be weak is to be unable to withstand injury" is a definition she suggests that sort of works for me on an abstract level -- I at least don't have to work to remember it -- but I don't experience any emotional resonance with it.

Here's an alternative I've been turning over: vulnerability is offering people more complete data so as to enable them to better model me.

On the one hand, I can sort of see that it might sound more impersonal, more abstracted, than the explanation proposed in the previous paragraph -- and on the other it's one that I am viscerally attuned to, to the point that typing it out leaves me hyper-aware of my belly and my throat, of my physical softness, of my -- yes -- vulnerability made manifest. ("The delicacy of my skin" might need to feature in a poem, hmm.)

It seems to be a succinct and internally intuitive way for me to encode the thought-shape of hope-and-fear inherent in letting people see me by showing them how to hurt me (by telling them how I work), with its mirror terror that even if I try I won't be understood.

Comments

[vass]

Hmm.

A couple of thoughts, not directly connected:

1. Re what ewt said, "and accepting that they may act on that information", I've been thinking (not aloud because those thoughts haven't condensed into something coherent yet) for a while about boundaries, in terms of the difficulty of determining what is or isn't "me" or "you" in a world in which we're all part of one giant ecosystem and are also full of microorganisms in symbiosis, and also of old evolutionary entities kludged together to form macroorganisms but still playing out their own ancient evolutionary strategies, which can come into conflict with each other even now... and how we're taking on and setting down molecules all the time, and acting on and being acted on all the time, and eating and being eaten all the time; and in that sense we are not and cannot be discrete entities, an island entire of itself and so on, and any boundaries and independence we establish are necessarily dynamic ones with push and pull and constant renegotiation, and with that comes the possibility that it will go wrong, that someone will take advantage -- but if we close our ports entirely, that is itself a way of going wrong. And so on.

2. Maybe there is more than one type of vulnerability. I think Dr Brown's definition points to something important about vulnerability (and she backs it up with the root of the word) but I don't like it as the defining feature either, even with her reminder that it's important to choose who and when one is vulnerable to, not just to be open to everyone all the time.

I like your definition too, but I feel like it doesn't quite cover all the territory I want it to. So, extending it: permissions. What you're talking about seems to be read access. But sometimes vulnerability is write access or even execute access. And sometimes it's adding someone to a user group. And this parallels the different forms of trust one can have in someone. Yes?

[azurelunatic]

Information close to my private keys, belike?

[vass]

*nod* Also, something related to a Cyteen analogy you've used before, about remembering where which tape came from. (I can't do that, my memory does not work that way, but I can definitely see why it would be an excellent practice if one could.)

[kaberett]

*headbutt* super interested in this, have been chewing it over, have More Things To Follow & will try to get to them tomorrow, but wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you before the next day cycle starts <3

[vass]

<3 Thank you for saying. Same.