In this post, we argue why vulnerability is an important component in personal relationships.
We first define personal relationships with others. We define personal relationships with others as the outward projection of the relationship we have with ourselves. In other words, personal relationships are governed by internal laws [1]. Note that we don't differentiate between close and distant personal relationships, like those with a close friend or an audience; we just define them as relationships that affect one personally.
The more true and authentic we are with ourselves, the more vulnerable we are with ourselves. And the more vulnerable we are with ourselves, the more authentically we can connect with others. The authenticity can come from two sources: emotions and reason [2]. That is, interpreting ourselves to be the physical body or not, i.e., characterizing the perceived reality as a cognitive bias or not [3].
We can study this in two professions that are at the two ends of the spectrum: the philosopher and the artist. The philosopher, who interprets themselves to be the mind, connecting with others using reason, and the artist, who interprets themselves to be the body, connecting with others using emotions.
Both philosophers and artists can connect with a large audience at a personal level. The philosopher is very honest with others, i.e., they share their mind in the form of thoughts, which makes them very vulnerable to others, since everyone knows where they stand on many issues, so they can connect with a large audience at a personal level.
The artist is very vulnerable to others because they share their real emotions[4] in the form of the art they create, and thus are capable of connecting to a large audience at a personal level.
[1] https://m-chaturvedi.github.io/blog/050/
[2] https://m-chaturvedi.github.io/blog/047/