trust evolves

Since moving completely into the online world in the mid-90s, I have been intrigued as to the nature of the dependency of people on technology. Their addiction developed almost immediately. Pretty much everyone anyone reading this knows is online whether they like it or not.  
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Continuing into the digital age, and the new definitions to older words, words like trust, truth, and love get used in so many ways they lose their impact. In loving and trusting and telling the truth in so many digital ways we have stretched some deep seated personal spaces.

Who do we love? Who do we tell the truth to? Who, if anyone, do we really trust?

With so many options, from a vast array of paths, there are more places that we use those words than ever before.

There is no reason to cultivate a relationship to a single thing because there is another one/person/whatever waiting and available.

The availability expands its reach all the time and only brings things desirable closer in the evolving definition of close in the digital age.

Expanding day-to-day connections with people that we have never actually met and probably never will is becoming more the norm all the time. When we say our “so called friends on Facebook” who are we they really? Is there a new word on the horizon, or is this how definitions change, and, if so, who’s dictionary are we using?

Along with the nature of relationship, the words we use to describe relationships continue to be overused to the point of being vague and meaningless.  

For the most part though, we have shredded truth so much it seems we are even lying when we say we are seeking because we seem to never actually find it.

Effort or availability?

Either way, trust is a word that has a lot of uses, and seems to have lost its punch over time.

Information has become so important in the materialist society that there is never enough of it, and even for those who try to avoid it, it is hard to be clueless when the same news that makes people unhappy is also they want to to talk about, to share news stories about, so that they make sure you feel bad about it to.

Don’t you feel better?

If not, don’t get a victim mindset and check your ego. More big words, important ones, but still.
Once upon a time, we trusted each other easily, then the number of people in our lives was replaced with more things in our life and it became not so easy to trust those. So we tried to cram it into our trust box and they simply don’t fit. At least not the same way, comfortably.

Trust is not lost over time, but people are, and, like trust, they are harder to replace.
With materials and the ever present obsession with money, online financial concern is among the top of the trust issues these days, at least when most think about trust.

Is this website secure? Can I really trust PayPal or something similar to send money to a friend’s email account? As those are always answered yes, they only grow more options, because now the store is open globally all the time to spread the trust around.

With fewer people as we continue in a separated society of lines drawn by various “facts”, believes and opinions, we  now we mostly trust things instead of individual people, and most commonly it is in the container of services offered and desired. Most often, not even a person but a company instead.

Do I trust this merchant? Why? It's just the way things have developed as we have moved more and more apart as the overall model of the "economy" changed conditions for most everyone to love things more than each other, more than themselves.

The days of knowing a lot of people at work, or even to have known them long enough to remember their wedding day or have kids is getting rarer all the time.

The digital world was the icing on the cake of a world already gone wild with mechanization powered by the ever-emerging cyber world. It secured an individuality for people who could have a sense of community without having to be in each other’s physical presence. Through various companies they trust, they have a solid connection.

They can also do so without much regard to day-to-day events if they do not choose to tune in to that frequency. It is very easy to tune out, you just surround yourself with like minded people, virtually or if you can in person, and you have a virtual community. Again, however, connected by digital companies.

One does not need to watch the news to make an educated guess as to what is going on.
Floods happen. Planes crash. They do, they do, and it's okay. It's life.

It is going to happen regardless of what you about, and, unless you have a way to prevent it from happening again, the best one can really do is do what it is they do and go on with life.

What else is there a need to know? If that is enough, you are carrying a lighter load and able to focus on you and your surroundings with all the more presence.

The overall point being that trust is being diffused to mean something it did not before, but there is one trust that can’t be lost.

With the way we trust so different now, how we do it, in what ways, and with who, is a constant ebb and flow.

Therefore, perhaps it is best just to trust yourself. I mention "the random opinions of others" a lot. It can be interpreted several ways, but, either way, remember they are all just that, opinions.
Even that one in your head. Try and narrow that down to just one and just speak.
Trust that.

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