Trust (procrastination while writing about relative surplus-value, sorry for any possible Marxist writing style)

Wow, I can't believe how little I've accomplished today. I am sorry you will all be subjected to my meditations on social life once more.

Anyway, I have been reflecting on life more and I think I've come to to a conclusion as to why I'm so socially dissatisfied right now.

The problem, as I see it, also happens to be the most fundamental classic sociological dilemma--the development of trust. I am uncomfortable right now because I haven't yet developed a close, cohesive circle of friends. I have good friends, perhaps a lot of good friends, but they are spread all over the university and all over the city and belong to various social circles. I remember in Oberlin and in Berlin, I had a circle. What does that mean? That in those contexts, relationship outweighs activity. I would rather do "nothing" with the circle or people from that circle than do "anything and everything" with other people. I didn't need excitement because I was satisfied with life as it was. I didn't feel compelled to drink myself silly, be the life of the party, or date to an almost unmanageable level because I didn't need that false sense of security and confidence. I didn't feel like I had to impress anybody with any part of myself. My qualities and flaws were just there, unconstrained, and on the table. I had the entitlement to just call my friends up and say "hey, wanna come over and hang out?" without having any sort of activity planned--and it was ok.

What does it take to develop that circle? Trust. Trust in other people and trust in yourself. Trust that you're ok to them; your foibles are your uniqueness and thus, only make you a better person. Trust that they like you enough, so much that you don't ever have to second-guess your words and actions. And that true type of self-assuredness or self-trust is what makes you confident, all the more likeable, and actually happy.

So how do we develop trust? There's the problem...nobody's ever been able to figure that one out. What do you have to give of yourself, what social risks do you have to take in order to do your part in establishing a trusting relationship? What parts of yourself with which you are uncomfortable do you have to uncloak before someone can reciprocally uncloak their own insecurities, and thus, seal the second half of the deal? After you have a 1:1, how do you get a network of trust? Trust among people and not only between, which is important because the trust-among amplifies each element of trust-between. I know only that these processes take time, but really, they are a combination of time and effort and perhaps also fortune or accident. I am compelled to believe that if I can amplify the effort, it will take less time and less accident, but right, like I already said, the nature of the requisite effort is unclear. And if you overstep, take too many or the wrong risks, you're asking for some serious trauma.

So do I wait? I suppose that's fair. I've been here since september, and I know 6 months or whatever is not really enough time to find people you want to trust, and to learn to trust them. But the time in "purgatory" is rather uncomfortable and I rage against it uncontrollably...
wow, what a strange, melancholic day...but don't be alarmed. I'm not actually sad right now, just actively reflecting and confronting my life.

I think I will have to forego the analysis of crime and societal injustice. I don't giva shit about a car window. $80 won't kill me, and I am quite sure (the circumstances of my life) - ($80 + 2 days of having a solid car) are still vastly more fortunate than those of the people who were compelled to disrupt my private property. To level off injustice-through-unearned advantage is certainly ok, even though it sucks personally.
I suppose grad school is teaching me that these mega-social activist macro issues are pretty sexy, but I don't honestly care about them in any deep way (kinda like sex with a male supermodel, heh). My reflex and obsession is to think about the experience of the individual as constructed by the social, not institutions, economic systems and governmental structures, etc.etc.etc., persay. I am obsessed with my own life--just like everyone else in the world, whether they admit it or not.

To conclude, I think that for those of you who are far away (really, to anyone reading it, then), who read this because we have trust from Oberlin or Berlin times, THANKS, THANKS A TON. I have not met others as fabulous as you. You're real; you made me real.