Hello once again 👋

This is going to be a stream-of-consciousness post, primarily because it's just a bundle of thoughts I had while on my hike today. On a side note, here's a portion of my local park that I've adopted and where I hiked to:

I've been thinking about vulnerability a lot recently, as I've been blown away by the authentic and genuine responses to my initial post on this blog. I grew up severely introverted and closed off to nearly everyone around me, and it wasn't until college that I really became comfortable opening up to people. Over the course of a few years, I've found myself at a culmination of plenty of introspection, effort, and even therapy, and I think the conclusion I have come to is this: I no longer want to compress myself into something digestible solely based on how I fear I will be perceived.

This looks like a lot of things - no longer apologizing for infodumping about the things I love, no longer apologizing for simply taking up space, no longer apologizing for being "too much" - but ultimately what it looks like is being vulnerable with yourself and with others. When you no longer care about how people will react to you, then being yourself is actually quite easy.

This past year has been quite isolating - for nearly everyone on the planet. What I've found interesting is how people responded to that. Some people have hinged on prescribed socialization, like school or the office, for so long that they never realized how little effort they truly put forth to create human connections. There are others, like me, who for their entire lives have processed every social interaction like a highlight reel with a pass/fail stamp at the end, that to even operate within a prescribed situation was a challenge. To feel connected to others, I had to find other ways at a young age. This meant I was active in online spaces as a young teenager, mostly anonymously, where I shared art, poetry, had lengthy philosophical discussions, etc. That was how I found connection early on, and is how I eventually eased into real socialization by being comfortable with sharing who I was with strangers. And if I could handle strangers, I could handle my friends.

And I know I'm just one of many in my age range who spent their introverted teenage years in online spaces. Which is why I was well-equipped to handle this strange period, and partially why I'm surprised that other people are surprised at my vulnerability in online spaces. Sure, this time it's actually connected to my name and face, but it's not that different than what I did growing up. In our day and age, so many peoples' online presences are so well-maintained and presented in a way that isn't authentic or vulnerable, that any time someone is we're taken aback by it. In my opinion, I think we're at a tremendously under-rated point in human history when it comes to vulnerability.

The fact that I can share something on Instagram, and how it's possible that my best friend from when I was 5 who I haven't talked to in over a decade, my high-school math teacher, and someone in a different state who I've never met IRL but talk to daily, can all experience that is something so profound and unique compared to our history as humans. So many things that connect us used to be bound by time - like seeing genitalia graffiti in Pompeii compared to genitalia graffiti at your local high school - but now it's bound by quantity. A lot of things are near instantaneous and global - almost anyone, nearly anywhere - can interact with you or experience something that you've put out into the world. It's just much easier to be drowned out or brushed aside.

Our inter-connected webs are just getting larger and larger, and in some ways it's strange. I think about the musician that I recently talked to after posting a lyric of theirs in my art on Insta, only to find out that we went to the same college but just missed each other. I think about my Tumblr, which only has 9 followers, but one of which is a notable artist with ~20k followers on both Tumblr and Insta. While numbers are arbitrary, connections are not. A fun activity when you get bored is starting on some random person's social media page and seeing how long it takes to stumble back upon yourself just by going through their followers/following list - I guarantee you it won't take as long as you think.

I'm not really sure where this big ramble is going, but I think it's just a reminder that people want to be vulnerable. It's just scary. By being the one to take the first step, you make it easier for those around you to also be vulnerable. So go out there and be your brazen self - someone will thank you for it.

I'll leave you with an excerpt from one of my favorite poems that I think about when I think of vulnerability and being close to those around you, For M by Mikko Harvey: