Vulnerability

I watched a TED talk about vulnerability. I took two things from it:

1. Happy people are pleased to be vulnerable.

2. Unhappy people are ashamed to be vulnerable. 

'Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart."'

We lost a family friend two weeks ago. He was not much older than me and his death was a shock - more than a shock, a fucking earthquake. I can not imagine anything more frustrating, more confusing, more devastating than to die so young with so much left to do. When my parents look at me now they see a 'what if' and a 'could have been.' We have realised the potential of our hurt.

About a month ago a woman who was not a family friend died as well. She was young, sick, and not perhaps as loved as the young man who died. She was not a model of morality. She was angry, prejudiced, and abused. I can't help but compare the two, the way the people living in the fall-out zones have reacted. Two post-mortems. One memorial. One bail posting.

It feels simplistic of me to convert these lessons to the creative endeavour, to argue that good art requires vulnerability. I question everything I do, right now I'm questioning this blog post. Am I sharing too much? Is this appropriate? Fuck it. I don't know whether I'm happier being vulnerable but I certainly won't be ashamed of it.