Wikipedia’s pages on ‘Reality’, and on ‘Trust:’ I looked into them as I started to outline the copious notes from my time in Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve been in HCM September-December 2020, in a kind of unexpected and longest-ever block of uninterrupted time to myself to look, listen, and observe. Wikipedia–and all the notes, and reviewing them with different colored pencils, have been together revealing something… cool.
I’m writing to that. That inkling. Awakening. A ‘f!… this is IT!’ suddenly there-and-you-can’t-not-see-it awareness.
Trust
What is trust? Wikipedia says, ‘Four types of social trust are recognized:[27]
Generalized trust, or trust in strangers, is an important form of trust in modern society, involving a large amount of social interactions among strangers.
Out-group trust is the trust an individual has in members of a different group. This could be members of a different ethnic group, or citizens of a different country, for example.
In-group trust is that which is placed in members of one’s own group.
Trust in neighbors considers the relationships between individuals who share a common residential environment.
This last one–about neighbors–was the focus for my internal dialogues that helped script a draft for the new short work, Reality & Trust.
Reality
According to Wikipedia, ‘Reality is the totality of all things, structures (actual and conceptual), events (past and present) and phenomena, whether observable or not. It is what a world view (whether it be based on individual or shared human experience) ultimately attempts to describe or map.’ This composition in one’s psychology—this is one’s ‘reality’. One’s. Not ‘society’s’. Not ‘ours’. One’s.
I’ve been sinking deeply into the meaningfulness of that term: reality. And trust, too.
More specifically, thinking long and deeply and dreaming away on these things, rekindling long-lost connections, rediscovering the magic of landing softly when I’m very lucky into ‘another home’, wherever I am in the world. And the intertwining thereof, of all the above. All this reflection has led to pre-writing for Reality & Trust. Different writing style, this time, but same Kismuth-y vibe.
