Insecurity Prevents, Vulnerability Enables
According to Robert Greene in The Art of Seduction, there is a common misunderstanding about what the personality traits of insecurity and vulnerability are. If you ask yourself or others, it’s hard to pinpoint the difference, yet they make a massive impact on how someone behaves and how the world perceives that person. We don’t like being around insecure people because they tend to come across as needy, overly self-conscious, and less playful. Vulnerable people, on the other hand, have something endearing about them: a kind of authenticity that makes them relatable and empathetic.
The Roots of Insecurity
All of us go through life experiencing a variety of things — positives and negatives, ecstasy and trauma. As your personality develops, the world constantly tells you what is right and wrong (which is certainly normal because this is how we create functional and responsible human beings). These teachings influence how you begin thinking of yourself and your actions within the framework of this education. You start to form a personality and realize who you are and what led you here. This is what existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre call someone’s facticity — the collection of traits and attributes that define who you are in the present moment.
Yet, crucially, in every person’s life, there will be negative experiences that don’t fit into this framework of how we should behave and think of ourselves, as taught by society. Over time, these begin to accumulate in our psyche — things that you don’t really know what to do with, things that don’t really make sense to you: why you acted in certain ways or why specific things happened to you.
Deep inside, you begin to push these down, not speak about them, not show or manifest them, trying to get rid of them somehow by ignoring them. You don’t want to occupy your mind with them so you can actually function in society. But in reality, pushing these problems down to the depths of your mind never leads to an escape from them, because they will always be deep down.
The more of these you have within your personality and experiences, the more fragmented your mind and personality will become. There will be many aspects of your life that you don’t know how to deal with, that you cannot work through, and that you somehow try to get rid of, believing that that will solve the problem.
This will just lead to more and more fragmentation, more and more discomfort within your own sense of self, and less and less acceptance of who you are. You will not know yourself well because you have not dealt with these problems, which means you also have not accepted yourself, and therefore, you cannot love yourself the way you are.
This is what leads to insecurity — parts of your psyche that you have not gotten along with become pushed down and hidden. These will inevitably manifest in how you behave and how you are uncomfortable in various situations, with different people and circumstances. Because you have not dealt with your problems and fears, you are afraid to move out of your comfort zone, which also means you are afraid to experience new things and have not developed your personality to a full extent.
Consider the example of someone who has had sexual problems in the past, and they have not dealt with them. They have not accepted this shady part of themselves; they have not tried to find a solution to their problems because they have pushed it down instead of dealing with it. This sexual inadequacy will inevitably come up the next time during a sexual encounter, as a kind of inhibition or spasm in their headspace, which will lead to either a failure to perform or a failure to enjoy the act itself.
The Appeal of Vulnerability
More generally, according to Greene, insecurity is repellent because it tends to manifest as unattractive and off-putting self-doubt, excessive self-consciousness, and lack of confidence, which leads to clingy, overly defensive, or negative behavior. Insecure people tend to focus too much on themselves and are unable to engage fully with others, so they misinterpret social cues because of this negative, self-referential bias. Therefore, insecure people also lack a kind of playfulness and spontaneity that fosters genuine connections and an overall life-embracing attitude.
On the other hand, people who have been able to accept their problems, first by not hiding or pushing them away because they are ashamed, are able to think through these problems, consider why they happened, and try to find solutions and explore the different aspects of their issues. These people can accept their shady parts and integrate them into their personality.
In the sexual example above, someone who has acknowledged their problem and is not ashamed of it can explore with clarity what works for them and what doesn’t in sexual settings, what they have to pay attention to, why they feel afraid to perform, or why they are unable to enjoy it. Someone who can manifest this nagging part of themselves clearly to themselves will be able to solve their issue because they have accepted that this is who they are. Therefore, they can open up to the world in a more integrated manner.
According to Greene, vulnerability is a deeply attractive trait because it involves being open about one’s weaknesses and emotions in a controlled manner that invites empathy and connection. This openness is not about seeking pity or sympathy; it’s about being authentic to who we are. It fosters more real connections by allowing other people to open up to us and engage with us openly and more intimately as well.
Moving from Insecurity to Authenticity
Vulnerable people also know themselves and their potential very well because they have examined all aspects of themselves under a spotlight and know what they are capable of. This is what existentialists call someone’s transcendence: equipped with full knowledge of who we are based on our life experiences, we can step out of the shadows and move toward who we want to be. Only after we have accepted who we are can we define the path forward and realize that our experiences, while they contribute to who we are, do not need to define who we want to become.
Vulnerability, therefore, is crucial to moving forward in life because only by acknowledging and integrating all parts of ourselves can we see the path ahead. The world will open up avenues to us only if we can open up to ourselves, allowing us to have wonderful lives full of opportunities in our relationships, careers, and everywhere else.
The advice, therefore, is simple yet very difficult to actually execute. We must be honest with ourselves. When something happens, we need to reflect on it — why it happened, why we behaved a certain way, and where it led us. We must see ourselves clearly, accepting that our upbringing, environment, and personality have shaped who we are today. We need to pay attention to situations where we feel the urge to hide our true selves. Why do we do this? How does it make us feel? Being inauthentic should feel terrible — like living a lie.
So, embrace who you are. Work through your problems and define who you want to be in life. Set goals, values, and principles that align with your integrated, authentic self. Then embrace a lighter existence: more spontaneous, playful, and present in the moment. Only by integrating all aspects of who you are can you move forward and truly live a life full of meaning and connection.
