Circle of trust

Oft in life, we come across people and faces that change us. Interactions that alter our core being, conversations that change our fundamental outlook, situations that change our sense of being and perspective...

People - they define us, or more specifically help us define ourselves. Who are we? what do we want? The when, where, what of our very existence is defined by interactions with others. In a broader sense, we relate to ourselves as relative to others - I am better than him, she is my ideal, he is perfect! and so on.. In case, it is not mortals that we seek to benchmark ourselves to, we create "Gods" or visions of perfection that we aspire to replicate in our thoughts, actions and words. In all of these cases, we are necessarily defining ourselves "relative" to others. Maybe that's why they call those related to us by bloodlines "relatives", the sense of benchmarking or "competition" is supposed to highest among those most like us??

Sorry, slightly off-tangent but couldn't resist the pun!;D

On a more serious note, lets get cracking on how we define ourselves!

All forms of social, emotional and human bonding are then an exercise in self-realization! So end of the day, we are all self-obsessed, unfulfilled, selfish souls seeking to find our anchor by our circle of trust! Ouch!! There goes the theory of man being a social animal down the drain! But wait, not necessarily coz here we are just trying to understand why man is a social animal, in fact we are just taking the theory to the next level! Phew!! Bach gayi!!:D

A related issue - Man is a social animal. That is a fundamental premise. However, why then do we have murderers, rapists, terrorists, basically "anti-social" elements also present as a part of the social fabric? Again, I would term these are social interactions; they may be anti-social to the extent that they harm one or more individuals but then the word "social" does not necessarily imply pleasant. I mean, just going by the word, a social interaction is an engagement between any two entities. It may or may not be legitimate, pleasant, or morally acceptable but the word per se doesn't lend any qualitative characteristics to the interaction. The form and nature of the interaction is an outcome of social, cultural, inter-personal phenomena guiding the two entities.

My take on the whole situation- we define ourselves by choosing whom we keep close to ourselves. The people we surround ourselves with, the company we associate with, the social interactions we choose to be a part of, even the organization we work with, essentially our "circle of trust" - the ones we open up to, lay bare our vulnerabilities, doubts, dilemmas, share our successes with, define our aspirations with, our closest friends and even our enemies (circle of distrust in this case!) (Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?)

Note that our core circle of trust may not be the most evident people in our lives - the friends we hang around with or the partner we live with. It may include some one as obscure as the poet whose work inspires us, the seer we look up to or the person on the plane we befriended an hour ago. It may or may not be evident to those who observe us, but inside us we know. These are the people we align with, seek as our natural allies, partners. As disaggegated individuals, these are the structures or the norms that bind us, unwind us. This, our circle of trust, is what defines our core being.