Trust

Subject: Trust.

The concept that "trust", the ability to trust people and events, to trust yourself and your ability to find things at least rational, leads to a much more contented and less stressful life.

Trust, the sort which isn't specific but is seen as a general attitude towards other people and the situations people find themselves in is built up through the family in early childhood and enacted as an instinctive default position, to trust people until they are no longer worthy of your trust. 

Trust has a daily component to it, that of routine and the expectancy encountered by routine. Behavioral physiology is best served by trusted routine and the pleasure in being rewarded by the predicted outcome. Even when the outcome is not as predicted, it's the fault of others, not our dogged belief in 'trust' the almost mystifyingly satisfying unconditional belief system a human being can hold. Trust is a sort of practical conscience which exists as a protective device against anxiety and is amplified through repetition. Trust solidifies our ability to live happy and contented lives.

Before I have confidence in you I have to have confidence in myself but coexisting with my self confidence, is my confidence in you. It is the belief in the  mutually compatibility of people and the trust we have in them. From the driver of the bus to the school teacher, from the change we receive from the shop keeper to the integrity of the news we receive through the media.

A relatively recent phenomena has been the question of false news, news deliberately put out to deceive us for ideological and political reasons. 
Of course trust in what we read or hear has been soiled in many instances. The last 100 years has seen the growth of the advertising industry whose job it seems is not only to bring to our notice new products but at the same time to over embellish the efficacy of those products to the extent that you begin to take what the advert tells you with a pinch of salt. There are few people who would put their trust in this industry other than  people who are willingly gullible. If you bombard them with distortion they succumb to distortion whilst admittedly remaining sceptical. They become compliant like sheep a sort of passivity at being duped. Trust therefore becomes an emotional rather than a cognitive thing.

Part of our susceptibility in this media/Internet addicted world is the 'regularity' and the repeated exposure to one of the most manipulative industries of modern life. Our daily input of television/internet and the effect it has on our senses can only be harmful. Regularity reinforces implicit trust, the minute by minute interaction with a mother reinforced this continuity of trust which rooted in love. Generally our relationships in early childhood do little to dislodge this optimism. Unacknowledged at this stage is the credo, "do unto others as you would wish they would do unto you". The sense of an Innate rightness which comes from trusting people and events is fundamental to your well being and psychological health. If your trust in someone is found to be misplaced don't blame the psychological mechanism trust, blame the inadequacy of the person who can't offer you their trust and feel a measure of sorrow for them that they have to carry the burden of not allowing themselves an insight into the joy of trust.