My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

Can we Trust anyone?

Prelude –  I love this headline and the feisty nun, ‘Way to go!’

Video: Nun tackles male climate extremist trying to disrupt Catholic religious center construction in France:

‘The Giants need to draft her’

What is a Legal Trust?

A trust is a legal arrangement for managing assets. There are different types of trusts and they are taxed differently. In a trust, assets are held and managed by one person or people the trustees to benefit another person or people.  These are the beneficiaries. The person providing the assets is called the settlor.

What does ‘trust’ mean in our terms?

I quote from Psychology Today

  • Trust is a brain process that binds representations of self, other, situation, and emotion into a neural pattern called a semantic pointer.
  • Trust is rarely absolute, but rather is restricted to particular situations.
  • Mistrusting someone is not just a prediction of betrayal. It’s also a bad emotional feeling about the untrustworthy person.

Trust is a central part of all human relationships, including romantic partnerships, family life, business operations, politics, and medical practices. If you don’t trust your doctor or psychotherapist, for example, it is much harder to benefit from their professional advice.

But what is trust? Here are some possibilities:

  1. Trust is a set of behaviors, such as acting in ways that depend on another.
  2. Trust is a belief in a probability that a person will behave in certain ways.
  3. Trust is an abstract mental attitude toward a proposition that someone is dependable.
  4. Trust is a feeling of confidence and security that a partner cares.
  5. Trust is a complex neural process that binds diverse representations into a semantic pointer that includes emotions.

Why I am writing this piece

I was talking to John, a friend of mine,  on the phone this morning and we were talking about the difficulty of trusting people in politics and indeed in trusting people in general. I said that I thought isolation were spreading between us largely due to fear and this made community activity, of which trust is a part, more difficult to achieve. Anyways, I have trained my brain to give me something different to write about each day so here are we.
I was recently let down by someone who I asked to do a task.  It was simple enough, or so I thought, but there were aspects of the task that I had not taken into account.  This I want to discuss at length.

 

If you make your default state of mind that you won’t trust anybody for any reason you might miss out big time.  I suppose there is a difference between being cautious and being cynical.  The trouble is you might generate your own ’cause and effect’ situation. They say ‘like attracts like’ so you may actually – without being aware of it – attract people who are indeed unreliable if you are that way inclined yourself
Asking anyone to do anything, or keep a promise, is something that is a luxury and so far as they actually do what is expected. In a close knit community, the level of trustworthiness is normally higher. Mainly, I suspect, because if you don’t do something your reputation will not be enhanced and in extreme cases you may be ostracized.

 

However, in an anonymous society,  there is every chance that people will promise something for example ‘I will get back to you’, and not keep to it, and not think twice about not keeping it. The repercussions will be minimal and the excuses to self are many.

 

If you work for a company you have probably found that some people ask questions and they don’t really need the answer so you can say to yourself as a service provider, oh well if they really want to know they can call back. This will only occur if there was poor contact in the original conversation or a lower grade service operator.
I have been meaning to call you back. I tried to call you back. This intrigues and annoys me. In what form did your trying take.  Did you try to lift the phone and it was too heavy?  Did you not get a signal?  Let’s face it there is no excuse for such statements, I call them limp excuses.

However, I just called my eye department in my local hospital.  I asked why I did not have a follow-up appointment to my recent cataract operation and they could not find out why commerce that they said they would call me back.  I half expected not to be called back but I was pleasantly surprised when three hours later they called to say that for some reason I had been marked as discharged so they have reversed this and were able then to give me  an appointment.   This was gratifying, and made a closure to the conversation.

 When I am trying to cross a river and I step on a wobbly stepping stone it makes my whole relationship with the river more insecure.  We need to embody firm stepping stones for others is my conclusion

 

If you fail to return a call, the fact is you forgot either because you did not think it important or you did not have the discipline to write things down. I love it when people say “I completely forgot.  I will do it straight away”    don’t say ‘something cropped up‘  because that is normally a straightforward lie.   It slipped my mind which is another way of saying the same thing.   Funny you should call, you came into my mind recently. I am then tempted to say well why did you not call me then?

 

However, lack of trust gets more serious.  I can think of people who were let down say 20 years ago by someone for example stealing their credit card. They have not forgiven them and they have not worked on the trauma concerning this. As a result, the condition of not trusting has spread to every area of their life like a cancer and they cannot seem to do anything about it.  This is a way of making yourself really isolated and is one of the reasons why you should forgive yourself and the other person and blessed them and only then you will be free of them.

The value of honesty

If you admit a cock-up , people say ‘okay fair enough’ and they move on.  The same principle applies to people who are late for an appointment.  If I agree to meet, especially in a public place, I will be on time. I leave early enough to allow for contingencies for example traffic.  If the other person gives an excuse, you can tell it is a lame excuse by the way they say it.   A new colleague that I was going to help was 20 minutes late.  She explained that she had to finish writing a sales document for someone who had messed up.  She took me on a journey of what it was like. After that, not only did I forgive her, not that there was much to forgive, but it actually started the meeting on and authentic note

 

They say ‘ be the change you want to see’   and I say as well be the reliable person that you would like other people to be.  To be fair, I am not often let down  but this is a small town where I live and people don’t do that.  In this age of mobile phones it is easily enough done to send a text message.

Empty Promises

 

Sometimes people make promises  because they are too cowardly  to say no or simply do not have the discipline of mind to fulfill their promise.   For example someone who says, oh I will fix that for you, maybe has not looked at the job or wants to be the sort of person that people appreciate because they give service but they may also be the sort of people that over-promise.   It is better not to promise something than to promise and let someone down.

 

How about – we must meet for lunch sometime.  You might as well not say that one because it so seldom materializes. It is much better to say, why don’t we meet for lunch, how about next Thursday at 1 o’clock. That means something.

 

Promises to give someone a call. Again you don’t have to say it unless you mean it. If you do mean it, make a note in your diary and if it is dependent on something else happening then link that promise with the event for example ‘ when I have visited the store to see if the item is still there, I will give you a call’
empty promises are best not made in the first place.

 

You could however make a pre-promise statement, or statement of intent.  For example I think I may be able to help you with this but I need to investigate it first. This sets the level of expectation at a reasonable level because it is conditional.

Marriage and relationship trust issues

Marriages and promises of marriage since they involve two people over a long period are properly the most genius when it comes to breaking trust. To me, adultery is inexcusable and indicates that the bond of trust but between the couple has broken. I am not impressed by ‘open marriages’  which to me show a complete misunderstanding of human nature and the importance of honesty so I would put that at the top of the tree with regard to trust breaking events.

 

As for promises of marriage, it can be that the act of coming closer to someone and committing yourself to them shows you a layer of that person that you were not aware of and so you wish to withdraw in the absence of sorting the problem out. In other words, withdrawing when you promise to marry to someone that was to the best of your knowledge suitable but it did not cover knowledge that you had not got or was going to appear.

 

Sometimes we trust people and with the best of intentions they cannot fulfill that. If they are decent they will tell us for example ‘I am terribly sorry but….’
I once had an association with a group of people  which contained a young lady who was forever forgetting her purse and turning very sweetly to people saying ‘I’m terribly sorry but I can’t pay, would you mind lending me some money’. If that happens once you can accommodate yourself but if the event has a habit of repeating, a person needs to learn by being denied using others as a convenience.

Summary – why trust?

So, bearing all the above in mind why should we trust anybody?  The problem is if we trust nobody we will have a very miserable life. We could not do business if there was no trust. We could not lend anyone anything if there was no trust.  Trust is in our self first of all.
I think the answer is somewhat tangential. You have to be the sort of person that people can themselves trust in order that they can be more honest with you. In other words, if you are a fearsome person that will lose their temper when people do not say yes, do not expect people to tell the truth to you.    In other words if you yourself are trustworthy and approachable, your more likely to attract trustworthy and approachable and indeed honest people
This applies to so many things in this life,  as you sow, so you will reap.  The word reap has biblical connotations but actually has a number of meanings.  You can read the benefits of something and enjoy the good things that happen as a result of doing it. For example, you’ll soon begin to read the benefits of being fitter.
In more biblical terms, to reap crops means to cut them down and gather them.  We are talking about collecting common gathering, bringing in with reference to a harvest.
It is said that a person can be known by the company they keep.  So maybe the answer to all this question about generic trusting is to get to know yourself and be the sort of person that attracts trustworthy people. Again to state the blindingly obvious if you are a liar and cheat you will attract liars and cheats.  They will lie and cheat each other and you without a second thought.
We need to raise our vibrations so we have a presence that people will hesitate before abusing.    As Tesla said, it all comes down to vibrations and frequency and wavelength.

Trust in God

My goodness that is a mighty topic which to even summarize will take a healthy amount of space. I will take my time here and write when inspired.

Addendum –

This is an incomplete record of a Scientific and Medical Network ZOOM  meeting held on Monday the 30th of October 2023

Trust or lack of it is formed from conception onward. I commented that in cases of the mother and father not loving each other the child emerges with ambivalent feelings of worth towards themselves and this can continue into adult life where they feel they can never be good enough. The biological explanation is that the blood from the mother circulates to the circulatory system of the child. Blood contains iron. That can be imprinted on with thoughts. This does not include energy fields and memory.

We discussed what types of children had the healthiest up bringing and it was posited that children who live on farms, together as a family with nature, experiencing life and death, working as a team, are among the most healthy whereas children from crowded cities can be very neurotic and problematic.

An attendee had given away money to about 40 people and in many cases debtors not pay them back and indeed treated them as an enemy and we discussed why this could have been the case. It could have been a learned pattern of behavior as a child where you wanted to please people. We consoled her by saying that in the eyes of the Almighty her good intentions would be blessed.

Some people we can trust instinctively, others we distrust instinctively and others we reserve judgment on. The criteria for the certainty of our trust being returned depends on the conditions. For example if you are going to enter into a business partnership with somebody or indeed are going to marry them, you would need to be very much more certain than with someone you just do business with from time to time. Some of us have to learn the hard way and we have trusted people because we want to trust them, because we need to trust them, or we are simply naive. It would be rare to find a person who has not been let down.

Pritti Patel ….A smile? A smirk? Smugness? Mixed messages here methinks.

The proposal was made that educe trust when we smile at someone; the smile was in one case instrumental in discouraging someone from taking their own life. I made the comment that if your motives are mixed, the 23 sets of facial muscles that are required for a smile do not cooperate and an intended smile can turn into a grimace, a grin, or even a snarl.

Someone said that we need to raise our vibrations so we have a presence that people will hesitate before abusing. As Tesla said, down to vibrations and frequency and wavelength.

I find it very shocking when someone I have known and trusted for some time behaves in an unethical way. But this has happened to me very rarely. It is often to do with or untruthfulness or manipulation.

What do people think about the thought that trust must be earned.

 

Charlie Rykken offered three useful references

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-020-00155-z
Sex Differences in Intimacy Levels in Best Friendships and Romantic Partnerships Eiluned Pearce, Anna Machin & Robin I. M. Dunbar 2020

https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-16890-004.pdf
Ignorance by Choice: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Underlying Motives of Willful Ignorance and Its Consequences 2023

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-not-the-only-creatures-who-mourn/
Humans Are Not the Only Creatures Who Mourn Barbara J. King 2015

I said that we all have duty of care towards ourselves and I gave the example of a young doe who entered a field and was filmed looking around. The animal was doing ‘duty of care’ to itself to avoid being eaten or attacked by other animals. This protective mechanism is deep down in all of us. During our life people have done wrong to us and unless we forgive them the condition becomes carcinogenic. This can spread through our entire mind so we could start about not forgiving one person for one act, compounding that, not forgiving that person at all, and then spreading to not trusting anybody and assuming they are going to take advantage of you.

I have noticed that people who divorced even though it was 20 years ago and speak of their husband or partner in unflattering terms. They have not noticed that they have been tied to the past and a victim of their own emotion. Have ties, love binds.

Not trusting anyone leads to a lonely life. I said that I have a personal  inner sanctum and an outer sanctum and all new people go into the outer sanctum. In order to be admitted to the inner sanctum, they have to prove themselves by their actions over a period between about 6 months and 12 months. This minimizes the risk of being hurt.

We should follow our gut and eventually just know whether we can trust someone or not. It is not an intellectual feeling. People with a happy and secure childhood find it much easier to distinguish between people that they can trust, and that they can’t but it’s a sort of felt response.