There is nothing like a week of RA training to really put you in touch with some pretty heavy stuff. I've been working at least 10 hours a day discussing, processing and reflecting on issues of self that even three weeks on a one armed sofa can't getcha. Not to get all "meaning of life" on you but here are some of the important take aways I'd like to share.
Today we talked about the idea of trust, which is a really interesting concept to me. The question was posed, "how do we treat people who trust us?" Going around in the circle, people mentioned things like sincerity, gentility, awareness, blah, blah, blah. This makes me wonder, how are these qualities different from how I treat people who don't trust me? The answer is that it's not different. I don't treat people who trust me differently than those people who do trust me. And why is this the case? My answer to that is really two fold:
I've realized that trust can only be a perception. Any human emotion is only ever a perception. I'm sure you can think of a time somebody said "I love you," only to then be treated in a manner that isn't congruent to that statement. There is no way to align the statement with the action in others. I cannot ever know who trusts me. I can assume trust from certain people, but that cannot be a known fact. Even if it was asserted by that party- I would be assuming that they were capable of judging feelings of trust honestly and then able to act on them appropriately. The nature of humanity is too complex to assume things like that. Even asking the question, "do you trust me?" will inherently make people uneasy. This is not to say that I am cynical and believe that nobody trusts me, it is only to say that regardless of your perceived trust or distrust of me, I will treat you the same. With sincerity, gentility and my full awareness, because I believe all people deserve this.
Just like I cannot judge who trusts me and who doesn't, I also cannot judge who deserves my trust and who doesn't. I could choose to disclose something personal to somebody who then throws it away. By what standards do I even judge how they are deserving in the first place. I cannot know your nature entirely, and even if I did, I cannot now how those things won't change in the future. So my deal is that I do not choose to whom I disclose. Information about my life is never secret, I live an open book. Trust should not be an issue of reciprocity, I do not believe in discretionary disclosure. Reciprocity with me comes from interest. This means that the value of the relationships I have with others is generated purely by the value they give it. This is obviously with the caveat that the information shared is strictly about my life. I have no desire to disclose information about other people that I have been privileged to, as that would be a direct breech of the respect I vowed that all people deserve. If asked any question, I will not lie and I will not dodge. I might preface the response by a warning, that either the answer has significant depth to me or might to you and can only be pursued by genuine interest- but this is not meant to bar entry. I want to be engaged with others who want to engage me, not those who I assume want to, or those who I've enclosed in my current circle of friends.
Important side note: This open door trust policy works because it is a completely transparent informational system. I will talk about anything anybody wants to talk about, but this trust by means of public disclosure does not extend to actions. I might not trust you to drive. I might not trust you to borrow money. But neither of these precludes you from meaningful interaction with me, regardless of your level of trust for me, because I'm not interested in gaging that. Trust me.