Do you trust yourself?
It seems like such a silly question, doesn't it? Why wouldn't you trust yourself when we each believe that we are the ones who no ourselves the best. Yet consistently, we are found to be unreliable witnesses of our experience, whether it be recalling a crime, or a childhood memory. It is not that our memory is all incorrect, but it is affected, influenced and warped by various sources that change the narrative. At times, we even block out what we have experienced because it is too painful, too traumatic.
Do you trust others?
I have generally believed that we don't actually put our trust in anyone else, but ourselves. Even when we say "I trust so and so" it isn't the trust in that person, but the trust in the evaluation of that person, that we have created. We someone who let's us down, breaking our trust in them. But what they have broken is the model we have built of them, our expectations as to they way they are and how they will behave. When their actions don't align with our assumed model of them, we feel hurt "by them" when in actual fact, what we should be damaged by is the inaccuracy of our own modelling. Their actions aren't out of character. they are out of the definitions and labels we gave their character.
This doesn't mean that there aren't trustworthy people who will act well, just that their "worthiness" isn't actually defined by who they are and their actions - it is defined by us, an external observer that carries our own biases and beliefs that will affect our confidence scoring system, applying trust where it might not be due, and distrust in what could be trusted.
The word and concept of "trust" actually comes from Old Norse, and it means help, confidence, protection, support. Essentially, it speaks to the integrity of whatever we are evaluating and we are counting up the scorecard to decide whether it can be relied upon. The problem is, that we aren't very good at including all the relevant data, or weighting them appropriately. For instance, good-looking people are generally perceived as more trustworthy than unattractive, because of the halo effect, where beautiful implies good and fair. Even the word implies something about looks, doesn't it? But, our own attraction is also going to influence our opinion of trust, because we want to attach ourselves to what we are attracted to, so we will look over and miss other attributes that might bring our judgement into question.
For the record, attractiveness has no correlation to trustworthiness.
I was considering the trust I have of my own memory in terms of childhood trauma, because while I think I might remember things clearly, they might not accurately represent the past reality. Not only that, I also think that, even if I remember events correctly from childhood, they were being observed with an immature and inexperienced mind, and having meaning attached that I probably wouldn't apply now, with more maturity and experience.
So, would the "trauma" evoking situation still be traumatic if it happened to me in current conditions today?
Unlikely. Because with maturity and experience of today, I would have observed the situations differently, processed differently and reacted differently. Being traumatised by childhood experience as an adult just shows that it wasn't processed well at the time, and hasn't been processed well enough since. This means that it is still active, still influencing, still affecting thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Past trauma still has power, because we continue to relive it, rather than learn from it and move on. It isn't just about letting go and forgetting, because the unconscious will still hold onto it, until it is understood adequately. Adequate understanding is where there is no longer a negative and at worst, a neutral impact from the trauma.
We might forgive, but we never forget.
It is interesting with trauma, because what traumatises and holds back one, might be an empowering experience for another that drives them forward healthily. Comparing trauma is an exercise in futility, much like comparing the experience of taste or love between two people, as we can never accurately put ourselves in the experience of another person. There is no "step into their shoes" mechanism, although people believe they are fully of empathy. They trust that their judgement of another's situation is accurate, based on their own experience and extrapolated understanding.
The trust we have in ourselves should never be complete, because nothing is completely certain. Even our own death which would appear to be as certain as it can get, still has room for us to be wrong - no matter how small that chance may be. But when it comes to a lot of the things we trust and distrust, we aren't basing it on trillions of bits of evidence, we are just going on how we feel about a couple data points, like looks, or how they make us feel. Our confidence should be low, but we back ourselves, no matter how often our judgements are proven incorrect.
Have faith.
Having faith isn't actually about trust, although they are often lumped together. For instance, some people believe in god and speak along the lines of "in god we trust" but there is zero data for a gods existence. It is all just belief and opinion, and the confidence in our judgement of others who say they know the truth. And isn't it interesting that "truth" originally meant being faithful and loyal. It wasn't about trust or proof at all - "I believe". That would make a truth-seeker someone who chooses to commit and believe something, without evidence. Though the meaning of "truth" has shifted over time to bring in accuracy and correctness - so that thought aligns with fact.
If we know the facts.
But as said, memory isn't good at presenting facts to us.
Should we trust ourselves?
Taraz
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