...Trust.

My Dad, the smartest person ever, told me once that it is not doubt that is the opposite of faith, but certitude. In other words, if unwavering confidence exists, there is no need to "trust," and trust is therefore not only rendered obsolete, but the situation of absolute certainty does not even allow for faith to exist...

Trust, like faith, is an exceedingly abstract concept. It is an idea that can not be easily defined...

I'll explain.
The definition of "trust" offered by dictionary.com is "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence."

Everyone trusts. I trust that when I get out of the car, I will not fall through the crust of the earth but that my feet will instead land securly on some form of concrete. I trust that when I wake up in the morning and walk down the stairs my family will not be waiting for me with a bazooka to blow my head off. I trust that my integerous (yes. it's a word. I say so.) friend will choose not to stab me in the back.

This type of trust is based off of a level of certitude, though, and therefore does not seem strikingly valuable. I trust my sister to not smother me in the middle of the night. Still, that says very little about our relationship or about the person she is or about the person that I am. Nothing is at stake.

When someone says, "Do you trust me?" (in an open-ended fashion as opposed to in refrence to a specific situation) what does he or she mean? What could he or she want? There has to be more. Where is it?

comment thoughtfully, please...

Hey Everyone.....you can read my blog without being tainted. yay.

Mingle² - Online Dating

Paul.

I've been reading 1 Corinthians during the last couple days.
I tensed up at least once in every single chapter.
I think I decided that I don't like it.
I like the other stuff the guy has written, but based only on Corinthians, I don't think Paul would have been my best friend.

At least I'm being honest....

People.

I'm not very good at people. Spending extended periods of time with other humans has made me realize this.

I snapped today.

Feeling strong emotions of anger (hatred?) toward people is actually pretty scary. I guess I underestimate myself...

I wonder how I'm ever going to get along...

.....Enough Said.

MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless

BEVERLY HILLS, CA—It is feared the sudden lack of online companionship could inflict long-term psychological damage among MySpace's 150 million users.

Messy.

I have one more day of school (tomorrow), and two days of finals next week. I'm pretty much done.

School is lame. I'll rant about it when I have time.

Besides that, there isn't a single aspect of my life that isn't messy right now....

(not sure what else to say...)

On Education

The latest of my days have been more or less congested with a growing sense of peevishness towards the education system that I unfortunately have the privilege of participating in. I am irritated at everything from senseless teachers who assign pointless work and brainless activities that waste my time to section 9528 of the federally imposed "No Child Left Behind Act" which allows for military recruiters to have unobstructed access to public schools. For the next week, or until I feel satisfied, I'll be discussing different aspects of the American education system that (in my opinion) are lacking and in need of reevaluation.

I am well aware that in third world countries the children are unable to attend school or receive an education. I realize that the system we have in place right now is superior to those in war-torn countries. Please don't comment about how "at least we can go to school." I'd like to emphasize ahead of time that pointing out the systems that are worse doesn't justify the mistakes and faults in ours...

I'll begin with this excerpt...

'THE ANIMAL SCHOOL'
AN EXCERPT BY
LEO BUSCAGLIA, PH.D.
FROM
LIVING, LOVING & LEARNING

I always tell the story of the animal school, a fabulous story that educators have had around for years. We laugh about it but we never do anything about it. A rabbit, bird, fish, squirrel, duck, and so on, all decided to start a school. Everybody sat down to write a curriculum. The rabbit insisted that running be in the curriculum. The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum. The squirrel insisted perpendicular tree climbing be in the curriculum. All the other animals wanted their specialty to be in the curriculum too, so they put everything in and then made the glorious mistake of insisting that all the animals take all of the courses. The rabbit was magnificent in running; nobody could run like the rabbit. But they insisted that it was good intellectual and emotional discipline to teach the rabbit flying. So they insisted that the rabbit learn to fly and they put him on this branch and said "Fly, rabbit!" And the poor old thing jumped off, broke a leg and fractured his skull. He became brain damaged and then he couldn't run very well either. So instead of an A on running, he got a C in running. And he got a D in flying because he was trying. And the curriculum committee was happy. The same way with the bird- he could fly like a freak all over the place, do loops and loops, and he was making an A. But they insisted that this bird burrow holes in the ground like a gopher. Of course he broke his wings and his beak and everything else and then he couldn't fly. But they were perfectly happy to give him a C in flying, and so on. And you know who the Valedictorian of the graduating class was? A mentally retarded eel, because he could do almost everything fairly well.