Vulnerability is not the opposite of strength. But that is how it often feels.

We are taught to build walls. We are encouraged to be rational, self-sufficient and immune to disorder and chaos. We should be disciplined and in control so that we might think clearly, choose wisely and react calmly.

This is based on the belief that anything that matters lies within you, and external events can only touch your essence if you allow them to do so.

But what if external factors have already impacted some indispensable quality that lies within you? Something that informs your character?

We do not begin life as self-contained units of rationality. We are born dependent on others. We are shaped by parents we didn’t choose. We exist in bodies we didn’t build. We operate inside systems we didn’t design.

Before we ever made a choice, choices were made on our behalf.

Alasdair MacIntyre refers to this as our “natural state of dependency” and argues that even our ability to reason is likely shaped by external factors. We are shaped by teachers, caregivers and the communities in which we live.

For this reason, much of who we are could be the result of luck, or at the very least, not entirely derived from our efforts alone. Our character, ethics and well-being are not sealed off from personal circumstances.

This does not mean we should abandon personal responsibility, but we should stop pretending that those who suffer are weak or that those who thrive are virtuous. We should instead acknowledge our vulnerability, as it helps to describe our reality.

Vulnerability acknowledges that we are porous, breakable and not entirely in control. Of course, we never have been, but this is not a flaw in the system. It is the system.

Recognising this lack of control can be uncomfortable, especially in a culture that promotes self-sufficiency. Indeed, the idea that we are in control of our own destiny can breed cruelty. It creates fertile ground to blame the poor for being poor, and the unwell for being unwell, while failing to ask what advantages might have shaped our success.

This is a key quality of vulnerability. It exposes injustice, while also inviting connection.

In being vulnerable, we should seek answers to questions that might come with some risk. We should find communities where we feel a sense of belonging. Vulnerability, after all, should be about connection. It should emerge from the acceptance that we are not alone and not invincible. It is a recognition that we need others, and others need us.

Vulnerability, therefore, is not weakness, but rather a necessary practice in determining what is right and good.