Something interesting came up for the new start for the icegorilla. A friend of mine has done some serious thinking about the topic of trust. As she was looking for a platform to publish her thoughts and ask for feedback, I offered to do it here. And so here it is! Read, think and respond if you want to. Auch auf deutsch.
Sincerely yours,
Guido
Thoughts on ‘trust’
Who do you (really) trust?? And actually: Why?
They say love comes in many shapes. There is love between child and parent, between lovers, between friends, plus many other forms. But what about trust? Does trust come in different shapes as well? How many ‘forms’ of trust are ‘out there’ and how come that such a fundamental basic emotion (is it one at all?) that is said to be so crucial as basis for any functioning (loving) relationship gets so little attention??
I googled the word ‘trust’, the first 16 hits are about trust in the financial sense or how to set up ‘Trusts’ or companies or alike and only the 17th recommended page is dealing with the topic from a relationship point of view (English Wikipedia)… With ‘love’ it is already the 2nd page (English Wikipedia again). That might be related to me searching for an English term from an in Germany based IP… Interesting, nevertheless.
Long story short – I just realized that trust is used almost as often as the very meaning-laden word ‘love’ – at least in my subjective observation (and has almost the same ‘weight’ seemingly, or is at least co-dependant), however today was the first time that I have googled it and read its ‘definition’ on Wikipedia. Ok, admittedly I cannot recall having done the same with the word ‘love’ before, but still this is striking me quite a bit… It is striking me because I know that I personally use the word myself a lot, think in its categories quite often (that are of course of very individual nature) and apply it to people and situations on a regular basis; but have apparently never really wondered about ‘its definition’, or at least my extended definition of it.
I felt inspired to ask myself: What does trust mean for me? Who do I REALLY trust? And what does this ‘REALLY’ stand for? (Not even mentioning: WHY?) I spontaneously made a list of people who came to my mind when I asked myself this 2nd question.. It weren’t many I would have impulsively said… Or was it? How can you ‘judge’ something so complex, so individual and sensitive? Even without knowing the ‘science’ behind it, I realized that it is only a very few individuals who I would unconditionally ‘trust with my life’ to use one of those popular and dramatic phrases. To figure this out, it might help to use a bit the fictional world here- Like imagining you were a ‘victim’ of some secret service intrigue (like Will Smith in Enemy of the State or any other movies of this kind) who suddenly is confronted with the decision of whom he can ‘really’ trust. He simply cannot know (that’s the point) who to trust and has to choose the people he entrusts his life to after having basically his existence threatened by what seems an unbeatable omnipresent enemy (you know the story). Too dramatic? Too far-fetched? Yeah, probably. The idea is to create a scenario (if you need some help there) that somehow leads you to a clear answer to: Who would I turn to (as in TRUST) when my life was at stake if I trusted ‘the wrong people’? Is it by default always family members? Or actually rather friends? Is it about how long this person/these people have been in your life already or their ‘level of trust’ they share with you in return? What is it that makes you trust these particular other human beings? – The general ‘why do we trust at all’ is not the question being asked here- very plainly said: Otherwise we would not function in our societies and be quite miserable.
But it is the WHAT-makes-you-trust?-part that really intrigues me.
Everyone will have their own answers to that I am sure. Maybe not articulated yet, maybe it is more constituted in emotions rather than logical constructs or verbal definitions. Whatever it is, we do live by this concept every day – applying it to people and situations on an almost daily basis. And often enough we experience failure with this concept- Either we abuse and eventually break trust that had been invested in us or we might be the ones on the other side whose trust is being betrayed.
So let me ask you: Could you spontaneously list the people in your life that you undoubtedly trust if asked right now? Do you know why you trust a certain person (these people)?
These are not trick questions. I would wish that they might be food for thought at least, and at best can be individually answered with confidence and clarity on your side. In the very best scenario you would want to share some of these answers to saturate my curious, wondering self which is still looking for a great part of these answers itself.
If you want to contribute to my ‘best case scenario’, please feel free to send me your thoughts about this via private message (in confidence 
) – this would, if at all, only be shared in a generic manner, anonymously, to encourage discussion again at another point.
Looking forward to your inspiration.
Mona
mona@icegorilla.com