[In-person] Curiosity Café: Vulnerability

It is often assumed that to be vulnerable is to be susceptible to physical or emotional harm. Consequently, portrayals and descriptions of vulnerability both in our day-to-day lives as well as in the media we consume are reductively negative, equating it with weakness, dependency, powerlessness, and passivity, among other things.

At our next Curiosity Café, led by returning guest co-moderator Eirini Martsoukaki and Sofia Panasiuk, we will discuss these common presumptions about vulnerability. The first half of our discussion will be devoted to exploring manifestations of vulnerability in our daily lives: we will explore the language we use to talk about vulnerability (‘TMI’, ‘trauma dumping’, ‘building walls’) and the ways in which leaning into vulnerability can be difficult, unsettling, empowering, or transformative.

In the second half, we’ll examine the social norms about vulnerability and what effects, if any, these norms have. In what contexts are we expected to be vulnerable? What are the consequences of having social norms or expectations around vulnerability? Has social media (e.g., Instagram, Reddit, X) enabled vulnerability to be shared and experienced in meaningfully different ways than before?

Space is limited! Please obtain a “Pay-What-You-Can” ticket from Curiosity Café here to attend this event. See the ticketing page for more info about tickets and other options including a limited number of free tickets.

Hope to see you there!

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This event is brought to you by Being and Becoming, a Toronto based non-profit. We aim to create community around exploring everyday concepts and experiences so that we may live more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful lives. We use philosophy as a tool with which we can come to a richer understanding of the world around us.

By offering activities, spaces, and other opportunities for conversation and co-exploration, we hope to enable the meeting and fusion of individuals and their ideas. Everyone is welcome, regardless of background: indeed, we believe the journey is best undertaken alongside explorers from a variety of disciplines, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Find out more about Being and Becoming here.

About the Curiosity Café Series:

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.