An acquaintance commented to me once that there was some kind of trust lacking between another friend and I. She and I seemed to take an entirely different stance to this idea of trust.
The acquaintance said that trust was the idea of sharing, just sharing between two parties and belief in the other party to accept and take in whatever you say. I end up on the opposite spectrum compared to her in that I never talk about myself to others without absolute necessity. Along her line of logic, I would conclude that I trust people purely out of complete necessity and that I pretty much don't trust anyone at all.
I wonder something at this point. Does trust necessitate knowledge of a person? I would prefer a division between the two.
The overused statement "Why can't you tell me this? Don't you trust me?" serves as a very telling sign of the seemingly strong link between trust and knowledge of another person - the lack of one suggests the lack of the other. After all, talking to someone about issues personal to yourself is generally a strong sign of trust in the other - to view it objectively, you just gave information which can be used to blackmail yourself in the future, or used to betray and play on your emotions. That you give another the chance to do so has the implicit meaning that you believe he or she would not do this.
Going the other way round, if you don't share anything personal about yourself to others, it gives the impression that you're walling yourself from others and dare not entertain the thought of emotional betrayal. You do not trust the other party, simply put. It's a simple and clear link between the two. Surely, therefore, someone like me who shares so little with others could not possibly trust any of his friends!
Yet, by this exact same line of logic, you trust the people who stalk your facebook account. You trust the strangers who read your blog. You trust the readers of your articles.
You cannot say it is an involuntary giving of information - it is public domain and you should be perfectly aware of that (in fact, it's usually one of the more important reasons as to why you start a blog or write an article) You cannot say that it is an unintended audience - they are on your friendslist on facebook, and they are part of your readership on a blog or a newspaper. And obviously you would not say that you trust every man who stalks your facebook account, reads your blog and your articles. Therefore, knowledge isn't exactly a sufficient condition for trust.
Furthermore, the first definition of 'trust' on google (ultimate pandering to authority meh) goes as such: "have confidence or faith in", stating confidence or faith in another as a prerequisite for trust.
Why do you have confidence in someone? Because you know from previous experience that he or she will do something and do it in a particular way. This can be based off anything - past occurrences, personality, competence, but it is essentially an extrapolation of past experiences and basing that to give a particular conclusion about someone that you can trust. Knowledge is certainly important in this aspect.
Why do you have faith in someone, then? Because you do not have any logical reasoning to support your opinion that he or she will do something and do it in a particular way. The face of certainty without reasoning is one of faith, and is present in the absence of knowledge of the other party.
A simple conclusion then goes - knowledge of another person is neither a sufficient condition for trust, nor a necessary condition for trust. As commonly used a benchmark it is, it isn't the only one around.
All this said, then, begs a question: Why don't you tell other people about yourself, then? If you have reason to withold your personal life from another, is it not a sign of distrust? After all, I never did shoot down the argument that hiding stuff from another person was a sign of distrust. And indeed, that was the question asked to me in my conversation. The answer I gave was short, and perhaps needs elaboration. It was "because I didn't see the need to".
In my prior arguments I might give the impression that telling personal stuff to someone isn't a sign of trust. I don't stand by that and I do believe it is a sign of trust, but for other reasons. Talking about oneself tends to be an act of relief, a removal of a burden or an emotional cleansing. That you trust another person not to add another burden to you is the sign of trust between you and him, not the fact that you entrust him with personal worries and burdens.
It goes, then, that if I have no particular need to relieve myself of any emotional burdens I have (simply because I am not so burdened by them in the first place), there is no actual reason why I would talk to others about myself. They are - to put it rather bluntly - irrelevant to my worries, and asking them to listen to me at times adds a burden on them without actually making myself feel better at all. Rather illogical situation, wouldn't you say?
Furthermore, I do not believe that my keeping things to myself has caused others to distrust me as a result. I have good friends who say that they don't know me very much at all, and I believe with certainty that they trust me all the same. Likewise, I trust them regardless of how much they tell me about their own lives. It is a form of trust that borders more on faith than confidence, but I am perfectly fine with it. Does telling them about myself improve my relationship with them? Perhaps - they know a different side of me, they might think differently about me. But I'm still me to them; I'm not another person altogether and they won't trust me more or trust me less if I told other people about myself. It's a rather unnecessary action that I don't see any need to fulfill on my own.
I have some friends whom I share personal stuff with. I trust them.
I have friends whom I don't share personal stuff with. I trust them all the same.
And hopefully, the opposite is just as true.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
MFA Talk
I shan't be talking about prom because well, there's not much that needs to be said when everyone's talked about it already. Instead I'll talk about something else that same day. It begins with a long walk from Gleneagles Hospital, past the golf courses and alongside the private estates, and ends at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. One bugger walk just for an 'informal interview' for an internship. And really, the informal interview was more of some guys trying to talk a lot and acting like geniuses.
The first impression you get of MFA if you walk in is really a place that reeks of higher-up-ism and a sense of condescension. Walking between private estates and a golf course just to get to a place doesn't really give the 'homely and welcoming' feel, and the completely marble interior doesn't help much in this regard.
Enter the first building on the right through the glass doors and you end up in a lobby that might as well have been a hotel. Look to the right when you enter and you see two couches with students chatting. Unsurprisingly, half are Rafflesians. In fact, I'm the only non-rafflesian male there, 1 out of 4. Figures, huh? As if I didn't need to be alienated even more than this, everyone around was talking about the A-Levels. Physics MCQ was the day after, though the person who had the paper wasn't studying for it (a queer Rafflesian right there. Oh, the stereotypes!)
We moved into the meeting room where we were supposed to have the informal interview (More of a discussion, to be precise) and sat down - 4 guys on one side, 4 girls on the other. The 3 guys to my left talk about RJ stuff and class stuff (all 3 were classmates) and the girls opposite talked about exams, then scholarships, and other internship interviews (EDB mainly). Then they talked a bit about anime and scholarships in Japan (the Monbusho one, actually. How convenient to have learnt about it, and from an anime blog of all places!) About half speak a 3rd language - two French, two Jap (me included). The rest unsure. I guess MFA's a good place to find trilingual people or something.
The discussion itself ended up centred on three things: Bureaucracy, Singapore-ASEAN Relations, and Singapore-US Relations (pertaining to global warming). To some extent it was a rather boring discussion except for a few notes:
1. Everyone thinks with the mindset of a student. To someone no longer in school like me, it's amazingly obvious how rigid they try to set their frameworks of thought. "As a History student I..." "As an Econs student I..." "I'm only J1 so I haven't learnt about..." "I'm not a History nor an Econs student but I..." Man. The first thing that one of them thought about when economic integration within ASEAN was mentioned was the problems with a single currency, and cited Eurozone. It's as if there was some innate need to prove that you recall what you learnt in school or something. Pretty disturbing.
The person got shot down immediately on the single currency thing, but it felt kind of "Do I get plus points for this" and "let's make the obvious sound cheem" when the guy shot her down. It's like telling someone that heat can't flow from a cold to a hot place spontaneously because the probability of transferring heat energy from a particle that isn't vibrating much to a madinsaneparticlevibratingmadlylikethisssss is far lower than vice versa. Whether you're correct or not you should've just said that it bloody goes against the 2nd law of thermodynamics. >_>
2. They talk about bureaucracy in a very neutral (sometimes positive) manner. It jars very much against what I recalled at Syinconnect with the WTO (that's Toilet, not Trade) feller complaining about how people can be so smart and turn so stupid the moment they enter the bureaucracy. I find myself aligning more towards the latter here, but then again I suppose I'm not the kind of person to find myself in this anyway. The guy who was saying he was fine with it and wants to be the kind of person who could make changes in the bureaucracy upon entering it and know the right decisions to make on the spot reeked of arrogance and pride to me. Maybe it's to do with pedigree. I'd never know.
3. There was so much 'cooperation' and sucking up to each other amongst friends it almost felt wrong to me. Saying you learnt a lot especially from listening to your friend (while conveniently forgetting the other 6 people in the discussion) is pretty blatant in my opinion. I can't ever picture myself doing this even if I had close friends at any interview. Shit needs to get shot down, and it needs to get shot down whether the shit spewer is a friend of yours or not. Shit don't discern between friend or foe, yo.
4. There was some queer idealization and oversight going on. Talking about Singapore being so awesome and being capable of being a voice and leader on global warming in the ASEAN region so as to prove its significance in the world, yet in the same breath mentioning that Singapore shouldn't do anything about its carbon emissions since it's such a small country and doesn't contribute much to global warming, and should care about its national interests more? And after that you explicitly state that there's nothing wrong with this 'apparant' hypocrisy because other world leaders on global warming (USA and China) don't do much about their carbon emissions either? And if that wasn't bad enough, to continue talking about how 'enlightened' nations will see Singapore as a leader in promoting change in regards to global warming rather than accuse it of superficial things like, I dunno, not being an NX-1 nation due to national interests? I swear the entire thing felt like a bad attempt to suckup to the US. The convenient excuse for completely ignoring ASEAN in this entire thing? "The topic was about Singapore-US relations, and Singapore-ASEAN was just now". (Ok, to be fair he didn't say that ad verbatim.)
When the interview's over and we were making our way towards the bus stop, I hear one of the girls on the phone saying that the interview didn't go too well because "there was a guy dominating the entire discussion" and then after that mentioning that she disagreed with so much of his points but couldn't think of a way to rebutt properly. Then she talked with another girl about applying for the interview experience so you know how to do things correctly (a nice way of saying "know how to dominate the conversation when it counts"). Everything's about the portfolio to the two of them, apparently.
When I think about it, the discussion felt pretty damn bureaucratic and sickening to me. It taught me more about the mindsets of better-off students than it did about MFA and foreign policy. Well, at least I went for it, I guess.
The first impression you get of MFA if you walk in is really a place that reeks of higher-up-ism and a sense of condescension. Walking between private estates and a golf course just to get to a place doesn't really give the 'homely and welcoming' feel, and the completely marble interior doesn't help much in this regard.
Enter the first building on the right through the glass doors and you end up in a lobby that might as well have been a hotel. Look to the right when you enter and you see two couches with students chatting. Unsurprisingly, half are Rafflesians. In fact, I'm the only non-rafflesian male there, 1 out of 4. Figures, huh? As if I didn't need to be alienated even more than this, everyone around was talking about the A-Levels. Physics MCQ was the day after, though the person who had the paper wasn't studying for it (a queer Rafflesian right there. Oh, the stereotypes!)
We moved into the meeting room where we were supposed to have the informal interview (More of a discussion, to be precise) and sat down - 4 guys on one side, 4 girls on the other. The 3 guys to my left talk about RJ stuff and class stuff (all 3 were classmates) and the girls opposite talked about exams, then scholarships, and other internship interviews (EDB mainly). Then they talked a bit about anime and scholarships in Japan (the Monbusho one, actually. How convenient to have learnt about it, and from an anime blog of all places!) About half speak a 3rd language - two French, two Jap (me included). The rest unsure. I guess MFA's a good place to find trilingual people or something.
The discussion itself ended up centred on three things: Bureaucracy, Singapore-ASEAN Relations, and Singapore-US Relations (pertaining to global warming). To some extent it was a rather boring discussion except for a few notes:
1. Everyone thinks with the mindset of a student. To someone no longer in school like me, it's amazingly obvious how rigid they try to set their frameworks of thought. "As a History student I..." "As an Econs student I..." "I'm only J1 so I haven't learnt about..." "I'm not a History nor an Econs student but I..." Man. The first thing that one of them thought about when economic integration within ASEAN was mentioned was the problems with a single currency, and cited Eurozone. It's as if there was some innate need to prove that you recall what you learnt in school or something. Pretty disturbing.
The person got shot down immediately on the single currency thing, but it felt kind of "Do I get plus points for this" and "let's make the obvious sound cheem" when the guy shot her down. It's like telling someone that heat can't flow from a cold to a hot place spontaneously because the probability of transferring heat energy from a particle that isn't vibrating much to a madinsaneparticlevibratingmadlylikethisssss is far lower than vice versa. Whether you're correct or not you should've just said that it bloody goes against the 2nd law of thermodynamics. >_>
2. They talk about bureaucracy in a very neutral (sometimes positive) manner. It jars very much against what I recalled at Syinconnect with the WTO (that's Toilet, not Trade) feller complaining about how people can be so smart and turn so stupid the moment they enter the bureaucracy. I find myself aligning more towards the latter here, but then again I suppose I'm not the kind of person to find myself in this anyway. The guy who was saying he was fine with it and wants to be the kind of person who could make changes in the bureaucracy upon entering it and know the right decisions to make on the spot reeked of arrogance and pride to me. Maybe it's to do with pedigree. I'd never know.
3. There was so much 'cooperation' and sucking up to each other amongst friends it almost felt wrong to me. Saying you learnt a lot especially from listening to your friend (while conveniently forgetting the other 6 people in the discussion) is pretty blatant in my opinion. I can't ever picture myself doing this even if I had close friends at any interview. Shit needs to get shot down, and it needs to get shot down whether the shit spewer is a friend of yours or not. Shit don't discern between friend or foe, yo.
4. There was some queer idealization and oversight going on. Talking about Singapore being so awesome and being capable of being a voice and leader on global warming in the ASEAN region so as to prove its significance in the world, yet in the same breath mentioning that Singapore shouldn't do anything about its carbon emissions since it's such a small country and doesn't contribute much to global warming, and should care about its national interests more? And after that you explicitly state that there's nothing wrong with this 'apparant' hypocrisy because other world leaders on global warming (USA and China) don't do much about their carbon emissions either? And if that wasn't bad enough, to continue talking about how 'enlightened' nations will see Singapore as a leader in promoting change in regards to global warming rather than accuse it of superficial things like, I dunno, not being an NX-1 nation due to national interests? I swear the entire thing felt like a bad attempt to suckup to the US. The convenient excuse for completely ignoring ASEAN in this entire thing? "The topic was about Singapore-US relations, and Singapore-ASEAN was just now". (Ok, to be fair he didn't say that ad verbatim.)
When the interview's over and we were making our way towards the bus stop, I hear one of the girls on the phone saying that the interview didn't go too well because "there was a guy dominating the entire discussion" and then after that mentioning that she disagreed with so much of his points but couldn't think of a way to rebutt properly. Then she talked with another girl about applying for the interview experience so you know how to do things correctly (a nice way of saying "know how to dominate the conversation when it counts"). Everything's about the portfolio to the two of them, apparently.
When I think about it, the discussion felt pretty damn bureaucratic and sickening to me. It taught me more about the mindsets of better-off students than it did about MFA and foreign policy. Well, at least I went for it, I guess.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Dneo says:
!
holy shit
i got cute shota cousin with cute flabby fats <3
yeaman (Y)
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
what the fuck
Dneo says:
no really
it's quite nice his belly fats
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
I APOLOGIZE
MY FETISHES DO NOT GO THAT FAR
Dneo says:
AHAHA
okay okay back to letter writing
brb
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
wait
you do realize all of us are staring at this conversation right
Dneo says:
hrmm?
i know
duh
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
ok
Dneo says:
all 4 of you (and possibly more)
it's okay my reputation is already gone... =(
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
just wondering coz that was technically revealing your gaypaedo tendencies
Dneo says:
for this group of friends though
nah that one, i only like the fats, nothing much else
so not much gay or pedo
moe fats!
oh shit
o god no
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
you have disturbing fetishes
I AM GOING TO QUOTE THIS
Dneo says:
okay nvm
.....
brb
---------------------------------------------
yeah that was me at XM's house
!
holy shit
i got cute shota cousin with cute flabby fats <3
yeaman (Y)
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
what the fuck
Dneo says:
no really
it's quite nice his belly fats
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
I APOLOGIZE
MY FETISHES DO NOT GO THAT FAR
Dneo says:
AHAHA
okay okay back to letter writing
brb
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
wait
you do realize all of us are staring at this conversation right
Dneo says:
hrmm?
i know
duh
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
ok
Dneo says:
all 4 of you (and possibly more)
it's okay my reputation is already gone... =(
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
just wondering coz that was technically revealing your gaypaedo tendencies
Dneo says:
for this group of friends though
nah that one, i only like the fats, nothing much else
so not much gay or pedo
moe fats!
oh shit
o god no
XM - Lvl 9001 Couch Potato says:
you have disturbing fetishes
I AM GOING TO QUOTE THIS
Dneo says:
okay nvm
.....
brb
---------------------------------------------
yeah that was me at XM's house
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
REST
Resttttttttttttt.
After going out pretty much everyday it's a good feeling to have.
It's pretty weird to want to talk about IB one week since it's ended, so I shan't LOL
Ok. >_>
So far on the list of stuff to do, Jubeat's nearly done (975k Ave, target 980k)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand nothing else.
Well, that and DJMax Technika's Heartbeat Course pass. Now to add Blythe in.
This is going to take a while.
After going out pretty much everyday it's a good feeling to have.
It's pretty weird to want to talk about IB one week since it's ended, so I shan't LOL
Ok. >_>
So far on the list of stuff to do, Jubeat's nearly done (975k Ave, target 980k)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand nothing else.
Well, that and DJMax Technika's Heartbeat Course pass. Now to add Blythe in.
This is going to take a while.
Monday, November 02, 2009
A day before
It is now exactly a day before the final exams of my Pre-Tertiary life, and more importantly the final exam of my ACSian Life.
It feels rather queer that I feel so very ambivalent about the entire exams. I know a number who feel similarly, what with the "Oh, it's just another prelims" feeling and all, but in the end I think it's not a very natural feeling to have on the day before the exams that could probably make a difference in the universities that off you a place (Ignoring other factors that could lead to you not going into said university - money and the like)
These days I've had a lot to think about, I guess. Perhaps it contributed to my not caring too much about the exams - too much other things to care about. Relationships, the future, love, life, and the like. Personal debts to pay to people (more than I'd give credit for, I bet) and debts to claim from people (admittedly very few). Thoughts to think, thoughts to write, thoughts to ponder upon for days and savour every last message and implication of each and every idea.
I must say that the past few days were worth it, even if not too much mugging was done.
-------------------------------------
So many thoughts yet I cannot place a single one on this blog. What a pity.
It feels rather queer that I feel so very ambivalent about the entire exams. I know a number who feel similarly, what with the "Oh, it's just another prelims" feeling and all, but in the end I think it's not a very natural feeling to have on the day before the exams that could probably make a difference in the universities that off you a place (Ignoring other factors that could lead to you not going into said university - money and the like)
These days I've had a lot to think about, I guess. Perhaps it contributed to my not caring too much about the exams - too much other things to care about. Relationships, the future, love, life, and the like. Personal debts to pay to people (more than I'd give credit for, I bet) and debts to claim from people (admittedly very few). Thoughts to think, thoughts to write, thoughts to ponder upon for days and savour every last message and implication of each and every idea.
I must say that the past few days were worth it, even if not too much mugging was done.
-------------------------------------
So many thoughts yet I cannot place a single one on this blog. What a pity.
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