Nick's Journal
This week’s topic is an apt one, as the journal is itself an example of it. I’m going to focus on Vulnerability this week.
One of the tough truths about life is that most of the lessons that really stick with you are the ones that caused you the most pain. Pain seems to crystallize a moment in your memory, allowing you to relive it at will, whether you wish to or not. And for better or worse, this turns out to be a very dangerous learning mechanism, as one can grow in one of two ways from that pain.
The first way to grow is through avoidance. There are situations in which learning avoidance is perfectly fine and is the appropriate growth path. Think of when you first touch a burning stove as a great example of this. Fuck, that hurt – I’m never going to touch a burning stove again. Done – you experienced the pain, you learned the lesson, you won’t ever touch the burning stove again, no (significant) harm and no foul.
This isn’t always the case though. If the only way you learn to deal with pain is avoidance, then think of all the damage you can do to your ability to interact with people? There is not a single person in the world who is going to go through life and not run into issues with other people. Friends, family, significant others, strangers or whomever. You’re young, they are usually young, you are making idiot decisions, so are they, and you both are not thinking through consequences. You haven’t learned not to be selfish, that what you do to others can cause them pain and you haven’t learned how to internalize their pain and make it part of your decision-making. And you will all just fuck up regardless, for any number of reasons - maybe you forgot to have coffee that morning? Maybe you just had a bad day, made a mistake. Maybe they are actually a selfish asshole. Maybe you are actually a selfish asshole. Maybe you are more different than you first realize.
And so inevitably you will have really negative situations with others at some point. Fucking traumatic ones in some cases. And if the lesson you learn is ‘don’t trust anyone’, ‘don’t be friendly to anyone, always be cautious’, ‘never open up to anyone’ than you are going to shut yourself off from most of the best things that life has to offer. It is very easy to end up with this sort of programming and it takes a lot of self-work to deprogram it and to heal from that pain.
For situations like this, you want the growth to come from healing in a way that makes you stronger against that same sort of thing going forward. So, whereas in the case of the hot stove, you could probably burn yourself over and over again and develop scar tissue and one day have really fucking strong hands against burns (and I’m sure there are bakers and chefs that actually have this) it’s probably not really necessary or worth it for the majority of us - we can just be careful around stoves.
In the case of relationships though, it is 100 percent worth it. The best relationships are formed with openness and vulnerability. You open up and share, they open up and share. Real connection is formed, you dig past surface level shit where you might as well be talking to your Uber driver, and you get into real formative conversations. You get past the walls that most people erect around themselves, to protect their true self. You get to understand their goals, their fears, their passions, their desires. The good stuff, the stuff that makes life worth living, makes conversations worth having, makes a person into a person and not a cardboard caricature, the spice of life stuff.
You don’t ever want to avoid that stuff. You want to dive in headfirst and seek it out always. You don't get to go there with people unless you open up yourself, it’s always quid pro quo, that’s just how it goes. And you won’t learn how to breach those topics without scaring people off unless you stumble through it a few times.
And guess what – if you do that, you are going to get burnt and you’re going to burn others. Over and over and over. People suck even when they don’t mean to. They are at different stages in their own journeys, they have their own shit going on, they have their own wants and desires, their own prejudices and views and they simply fuck up and make mistakes – their suck is perfectly understandable, and you will suck to them at times basically. Most of the time you’re actually probably going to end up disappointed. And it is going to hurt. And hurt again. And again.
Every once in a while though, you’re going to find one of your people. And they are going to be the foundational people that drive your entire life forward, that offset all that bad and pay you back with interest. It’s the only real way to find your true connections, because if you’re both just always wearing masks than you’ve never even truly met yet.
And every time it hurts, you’re going to heal back stronger. And if you do it right, you aren’t going to heal in a way that shuts out the world. It’s more like your skin becomes steel, but you still don’t wear armor and you don’t build walls. You just know you can put your hand in that fire, pull out that pizza at just the right moment and reap the rewards, pain be damned. Baker’s hands.
If you ever want to explore an art, you're going to need to tap into that vulnerability. There is a reason Taylor is a billionaire. She bares her soul in all its rawness for you. That's courage, that's what speaks to you when you listen, that she isn’t just singing, she’s relating. All the best songs, the best stories, the best art - it all comes from the artist's most vulnerable core. If you hold back, people know. Because sooner or later, we all get hurt and we know what it actually feels like, not the stories we tell each other, not the fake fronts we use to protect ourselves, but the real stuff. And we know when they get it right and we know when they hold back. You have to channel any emotion in its pure form to really touch another person, and the stronger the emotion the better that connection. There is a reason most hit songs are about love, heartbreak or tragedy.
So be prepared to get hurt a lot. And for it all to be worth it - lead with your heart, always. Everything else is just noise really. Find your people and keep them when you do. Even if you go through bumpy patches. Especially when you go through bumpy patches. Life is longer than you think and good people are much harder to come by than everyone likes to pretend. Don’t be so quick to cut and replace.
Those who are the most vulnerable are ultimately the strongest among us.
Much love as always,
Nick
Quotes:
Fucking amazing quote. Keep fighting the good fight - lean into your good side.
“You are right to be worried about your growing feelings of cynicism and you need to take action to protect yourself and those around you. … Cynicism is not a neutral position—and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils. I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. I lacked the knowledge, the foresight, the self-awareness. I just didn’t know. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, to understand that it was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like … keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.” — Nick Cave, legendary songwriter and frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
This is actually what this word means. And its fucking awesome and why you need to connect with people and love the world you inhabit. Every one of them is a main character just waiting for you to build them out in your own story. How many awesome people are you letting be a mere extra when they could have been important chapters in your own story and taught you so much about life? The average 24-35 year-old spends over 2 and a half hours PER DAY on social media. Hopefully this is all at work instead of working but, if not, quit fucking around and actually connect with real live people.