Meekness, Vulnerability, Agency

It’s raining at this particular moment as I’m slumped on the couch, attempting a first draft, waiting, patiently, for language, as the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City hums in the background. I usually dislike the show — the clamoring arguments like silverware in a blender — but amidst the rain, it’s all somehow more… pleasant. Though, not enough to convince me to watch an entire season (sorry, Caitlin).

Rain does that to things, softens the edges. There’s something especially unique about rain in California. For one, what qualifies as “rain” here would be considered a mere mist in much of the world. And then there’s the fact that California rain, suitably, seems to arrive with the power of celebrity — it’s noticed immediately and disrupts the normal flow of things. We get rain every year, but somehow we seem to suffer from a collective, perpetual amnesia, acting as if we’ve never experienced water falling from the sky. As millions of people across this country shovel snow from their driveways, many of us (me included) decide to forgo grocery shopping because it’d just be too damn much to have to carry an umbrella.

Saying all this, I love the rain here. Its potent because its rare, and often gentle. There’s a virtue to softer things.

Meekness

A friend and neighbor of mine, Jacob Albert (bless you if reading), recently hosted a book event for the author Grady Chambers to discuss his recent novel Great Disasters. I’d never heard of this author before, but it was such a delightful, moving, poignantly relatable conversation that I quickly picked up a signed copy and now find myself fully immersed in the story.

The themes from their discussion — the specific complexities of male friendships, the certain ennui of growing up amidst 9/11, the angels and demons of alcohol, the painful (yet often funny) quest of trying to find oneself in an ever-shifting world — were covered with such gifted articulation I couldn’t help but experience envy alongside my appreciation. Consider that the highest praise to go buy this book.

Out of everything though, one particular bit has seemed to stick with me. They were reflecting on the main character of the novel, Graham, and how he possesses a certain meekness — a trait that is so often framed as a weakness to overcome. But through gifted writing and much welcomed humanity, Chambers is able to, as Jacob described it, re-cast “meekness as sort of punk rock”. There’s something subversive and badass about taking a quality that society associates with passivity and turning into a character’s unexpected strength.

As was brought up, there’s a Biblical connection here: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”. A memorable line from Theology classes which, admittedly, I’ve never fully understood. And this confusion appears to exist in the spiritual community as, from a quick Google search, there are many attempts at sense making.

To be clear, there’s no religious philosophy being espoused by this novel. But maybe there’s some inherent shared wisdom through challenging society’s ongoing misunderstanding of the concept of meekness. My instinct when recalling that Biblical passage is always to interpret it as some sort of moral duty about helping those in need — the meek, the poor, the weak, the down-and-out…. But maybe it’s the meek that are trying to help the rest of us? Can meekness be a path to something more honest, dare I say transcendent? And if so, maybe we shouldn’t feel such shame and resistance to the meekness within us — if anything, it could be something we might choose to nurture.

As Vaclav Havel, political prisoner turned first democratically elected president of Czech Republic (e.g. clearly not a passive dude), states:

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility - Václav Havel

Vulnerability

In a related vein, I’ve often felt a similar punk-rock-ness to vulnerability. This is a tricky word though, because it can sometimes get co-opted for neediness or a complete lack of boundaries. If someone is constantly dumping their issues on you, it’s unclear if they’re being vulnerable, but it is clear that you are now covered in their shit.

There’s a more selfless version though — one that stems from the courage of facing our feelings while in the observance of others. True vulnerability, as I understand it, is a breaking through the walls of shame in order to open the doors of connection. Rather than trying to offload our issues, or seek reassurance to absolve us of certain feelings, we have the (rather punk-rock) option to just feel the feels. By demonstrating our capacity for experiencing [fill in the blank] form of suffering, and still surviving, we can subvert constricting views of “normalcy” and recognize the shared human experiences that connect us all.

This is tough stuff though, so it’s often best done through a joke. Humor is the spoonful of sugar that helps the vulnerability go down, I guess.

It’s why we seem to be drawn to certain comedians. I feel like whenever I hear some comic reminiscing about the brilliance of Richard Pryor, for example, it always seems to be about his courage to be vulnerable, his ability to face things head on and break through taboos.

And it’s similar when explaining my admiration for Maria Bamford or my regular following of Marc Maron (including the opening monologue). As we often joke, laughter isn’t that far off from crying.

More recently, I’ve experienced this watching the show Dave. I find it brilliant, hilarious, absurd, truly subversive, sometimes to the point of discomfort, but always with the utmost humanity. It’s one of the more honest representations of vulnerability I’ve witnessed.

There are so many examples to pull from, but in one episode, a core character, Gata, opens up about his bipolar disorder. You need to watch the full thing to really grasp the emotional weight, but this particular scene really messed me up (in a good way). What a display of tenderness, of friendship. I’ve gone back to watch it multiple times. I stumbled into this show through an Instagram post by the critic Hilton Als. Those are the rare moments when I’m grateful for social media.

To round this out, vulnerability can also seem to be the prerequisite for love, as expressed by a moving passage from The Great Disaster:

Whatever love is, the movie suggested that it happens in an instant, and that its spell will be silent and mutually acknowledged…. Those films, I came to see, didn’t teach me anything about vulnerability. They didn’t teach me what seemed to come so effortlessly to Ryan: that to be loved, you have to risk something. That to be loved, you have to give someone else the chance to see you as you are. To be loved, you have to admit that you desire another person. In the face of the possibility that they might not say it in return, you have to admit that you need them.

Agency

If things are feeling a bit too mushy at this point, well, we can sniff some espresso beans and take a hard pivot to a trait that seems to be all the rage in the circles of power around Silicon Valley: high agency.

There was a recent essay in New York Magazine titled The Techno Optimist’s Guide to Futureproofing Your Child, that essentially took a deep dive into the variety of ways (including alternative forms of education) in which parents are trying to instill “high agency” character traits in their children in order to ensure they don’t get “left behind”.

Lately, on X and LinkedIn and the other places where Silicon Valley thought leaders dwell, “agency” has become a way to describe what sets founders apart from civilians: a bias toward action, a willingness to ignore the haters, a steadfast belief that “you can just do things.”

It’s really easy to eye roll at this survival-of-the-fittest type ideology. But look, we can be honest about the values of taking responsibility, and learning how to develop the drive, ambition, and conviction necessary to make an impact in this world. The problem is, I think, in the way in which “high agency” gets misinterpreted and co-opted as an excuse for being, well, an asshole. It’s similar, in a way, to how meekness gets confused with weakness — but in this case agency gets confused with superiority. Additionally, there’s a risk in flattening “agency” to the traits most associated with “founders mode” (dominance, determinism, directness, drive), because it overlooks all the other forms of agency that carry their own unique value.

Consider for example, that being vulnerable requires the agency to face fears directly, that being meek requires the agency to have humility amidst challenges. For all these softer traits that are often bundle under the umbrella of timidity, if done right, they can even be more courageous than having, say, hard-nosed conviction. It takes a lot more bravery to surrender to the unknown than it does to close in on a particular way of seeing the world. I’m not here to say one realm is more noble than the other. Life benefits from the balance. But our society places “sharper edges” on an alter to an almost dangerous degree, so it requires subversive, courageous acts of existence to make room for, and defend, the virtue of gentler things.

There are times to make your own weather system; there are other times to dance in the rain.

A closing quote

It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not. - Tich Nhat Hanh

A parting song

Cameron Winter is the front man for the rock band Geese, who are getting all the praise these days with headlines like “Finally, a New Idea in Rock and Roll”.

I just recently discovered his solo album Heavy Metal and I’ve been entranced. I’ve not locked into an album with this type of intensity in some time.

I was delighted to see one of my favorite music critics singing its praises:

Cameron Winter’s “Heavy Metal” is almost a year old now. Woke up & felt a visceral thirst for it, a deep bodily craving, which is still probably the truest sign something has snaked its way into my subconscious. One of those records — inventive, unpredictable, tender, disdainful, occasionally difficult — that teaches you how to listen to it. Like most critics, I’m convinced this guy is the real deal, the next great New York City visionary-freak, with all the weirdo disaffection of Lou Reed (or, incidentally, Julian Casablancas). Though he perhaps reminds me the most of Leonard Cohen, if Cohen had ended up in Swans, or maybe Suicide. My favorite part on this record is when he sings “Something will take you by your pants!” on “Love Takes Miles.” Pretty good summation of being sentient in 2025. That whole song is such a killer — “Lonely as Hell, walking around, without moving, I’m not here, watching the moon, writing it down, love takes miles, love takes years.” But the best thing about “Heavy Metal” is how effortful it feels — it’s not a frictionless transaction, not easy, not nice, it thrashes against itself, it goes nowhere, it comes back. Amen, man.

BUT if you listen to / watch one thing, please have it be his solo TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel. This has really burrowed in my brain and I keep returning to it. Talk about a punk-rock choice for a late night performance - a ballad! And for the front man of a rock band! It’s also hard to say if there’s anything more badass than a lip roll mid song.

Sometimes gentleness can deliver the strongest punch.

A special talent. I look forward to more of his music.