Arisa's comments about Trust

Hey Arisa,

 

Good to see you online! My answers are below.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: arisa [mailto:arisa.siong@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 6:37 PM
To: Stuart Tan

 

custom my question: I read how do you know who to trust.  Perhaps a little late but my long, not all that important but nevertheless interesting question is:

 

Doesn't trust stem from beliefs?  It's more a statement than a question really.  If you believe in something or someone, you inevitably put your trust there.  In fact everything stems from a belief doesn't it?  From then it develops into an complex web of determinants.

 

 

Well, I'd think about it before I say this. Everything stems from a belief?? It depends on what you say. But that is not as pertinent as your initial premise - doesn't trust stem from beliefs.

Trust in my opinion stems less from Beliefs and more from Values. I may believe you, but I may not trust you. I may have a belief in you, and that is a value - you are important to me.

At the same time, I’m talking about our accumulated experiences with people. I trust Person X because he is consistent and behaves that way over 15 years. I don’t trust Person Y because in the 3 years I’ve known him, I can’t detect a pattern of safety. There’s no baring of the soul. I don’t see weakness I can find strength in.

 

So consequently, to establish trust, to build trust or to determine who you can trust would stem from what a person believes in, yes?  Then the question becomes what is believable?

 

Whoa... you got the whole Socratic equation going, girl! Here's what I think. If a person believes in himself at the expense of other people, sure, he will appear trusting, but won't get very far and end up hurting many people in the process. If a person believes that everyone is trustable, then that will be the predisposition to create trust. Still, the beliefs are not exposed to me if I don’t see it, hear it or feel it from consistent behavior.

 

So I'm afraid I don't quite “believe in” the logical jump from trust=what is believable. So, by the same token, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I think I’ve peeled some layers away from myself and others have too, to know that some people can be trusted, others can’t.

 

 

So that leaves me with a question on belives, how do you believe in something, is it predisposed, encripted into your character, god given, or is it just another tool for the masters of language patterns to sway in their way?

 

Does this include the possibility that I believe that I distrust someone? Language affects other structures in our psyche as well – our values and identity are touched through language. Beliefs don’t drive us – our values drive us. Beliefs are accumulated memories of cause and effect. Values are selective memories of pleasant or unpleasant emotions and meanings (complex equivalences).

 

Then I can progress on to say maybe it's a bit of both.  Some people have harder characters and are more skeptical, others are just optimistic.  With trust and believe, it's inevitable that a track records counts, so if that's important, how do you get round the problem of not having a good track record?

 

In that sense trust would violate all that it's meant to be.  A deeper understanding, a inner believe, because if track records can be created beautifully and masterfully carved, then trust wouldn't be such a big thing would it.  I guess you can argue it depends on the degree of trusts.

 

Hm. I get your point. That if people had a record of all the good and evil they have done, it would then equate to a balance. I'm afraid that may not be so clear. That track record has to be person specific, and perception specific. Say we are good friends. We trust each other. You betray my trust, you have -1000 points on your score card. BUT if I am the kind of guy who always says "she must have her reasons", and I always reset your score to 0 or above 0, then the point is moot.

 

On top of that, Jim may be trustable to me, but not trustable to you. You don’t like him. You don’t synergize. You find it difficult to establish rapport. But I’ve known Jim for 10 years and he’s always been my buddy. Who’s right? Well… you probably have to go find out. See what his behavior consistently yields for you. That will get you to be ‘convinced’ and thus ‘believe’ and ‘trust’ him.

 

Some people are convinced instantly. Others need some time. Still others need 100% consistency to be absolutely convinced.

 

So I conclude and say that it's important to see, at least to me that it all comes down to a choice, concious or not, it's a choice to hold certain believes, be and live a certain way, put faith in some people.  So who can you trust?  The people you can choose.  Choices have consequences, that sometimes some people are too afraid to risk hence to trust.  So if I understand that, then the matter of trust will be to over come fear.

 

Haha... I'll see if that becomes a slippery slope. Hmm… to trust is to know what to believe. To believe is to choose, and to choose is to overcome fear. Cool... still, I wouldn’t be so sure about it. Sounds more linear than it is systemic.

 

I know I'm conlcuding but just as with everything else, it's a cycle, to trust is to over come a certain fear and have faith, to have faith is a personally choice, that determines your believes, that can be swayed by influences, that may place you in scary places to which you never want to visit again hence not trust. 

 

 

So I say break the cycle, make it a straight line so it never bend backwards again.  That would be too ideal, because that would imply having believes so strong, you can trust fully, that anything wrong that might happen only serves to sway you back on that straight path that you have chosen. 

 

The old saying goes, there are people you can trust and there are people who you don't, not can't, don't.  It is a tough choice.

 

There are less ideal people in a less than ideal world, and these lesser people are the ones you can truly trust.

 

Ooh. And I can trust you on that one, huh? Like I said, I believe it’s more on the issue of consistency. If you and I haven’t had much exposure to each other, it would be difficult to make a choice to trust. So we choose the safest choice for us – stay away.

 

But sometimes, we interact very deeply in, say, a five day camp, and we bare our thoughts and ideals. We see each other in action. We watch and hear evidence of a human being there with feelings and emotions and detect consistency in performance. We trust each other.

 

The psychological intimacy of sharing at a level of beliefs and values leads us to a point of entry. As with the cycle of beliefs, we first are doubtful of a new belief, we grow open to that belief over time and evidence, we learn to believe, then become open to doubt this belief as time goes by and the belief we gather proves to be inconsistent for us.