On Trust and Caring

Both trust and caring have many different connotations, depending on the situations. We could limit the discussion to human relationships of the personal variety, as matisse suggested, which does seem appropriate to an a.a discussion.

There are a couple comments made by matisse to Layo that I think are particularly relevant to all humans beyond the age of 2:

:are you just like me at the end of the day? saying 
:things you don't believe and believing things you would never say?  i 
:deducted it from what you were saying.

This is called "survival." It is a negotiation tactic.

Eventually someone goes BWAHAHAHA. Is it you?

AND

:but what i do know is that you tend to write these 
:long posts judging "slaves" and placing yourself above other forms of 
:life.  the problem, however, is that you generalize and prejudge in such 
:a manner that you are only feeding your own ego.

Humans learn to delineate themselves peacefully from the outside environment. It is an ongoing process that gets rather silly around adolescence. Again, if you have made it past 2, feeding your ego through generalization and prejudgment should feel natural to you.

---

More specifically...

Trust and caring often appear together. Is this merely a coincidence or does it suggest that one determines the other?

Trust shows a reliance upon another person, for something that is mutually desired; caring appeals to the dynamic of interpersonal relationships and suggests that one person is assuming the role of being watchful or concerned.

The two coincide in a ideal case. In the ideal case, each person has something to offer the other, and mutual trust and caring serve the purposes of both characters. This is common when the shared value is love.

Given that trust and caring are essential precursors to love... a person may run into many characters whose view of love is warped because of past issues. Henceforth, we arrive at a non-ideal case. Perhaps money is more important to the person than love. Perhaps power. There are many things that have been and will be considered above love. "And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

It seems Layo has run into a number of these sordid cases, arising from her involvement in a.a. While a person cares about another person, concern may arise due to a perverted motive. While Layo may have trusted some people with a soiled motive, she soon found them out and was disgusted.

Trusting brings forth parental emotions. It calls back a figure of a mother or father. Someone that was supposed to be trusted. Caring brings back individual emotions. What you were left with when you discovered that you could not trust your mother, you father, your friends nor teachers. This represents who you are and what you have to give, not as an exchange, but as who you are as a person, and what love you have mustered independently for yourself and for humanity.

I say this not exclusively in dealing with real life, nor exclusively with alt.angst. However I must admit that I would take Layo and matisse over any woman I have met in past 3 years or so. Even men. I love my friend and all, but if I had to choose between David and my friend, I would select David's presence on usenet. I don't think this makes me a freak, really.