That’s what it all comes down to, trust and faith which are different words for the same damn thing. The truth is that I don’t know how to put a positive expectation on another human being. It’s beyond my ability at this point. Oh, you might say, but you appear vulnerable, right? That’s some kind of trust, one would think. The fact is that I don’t care. Curse me, you still can’t do worse than I expect you to. I trust people to be as awful as I can imagine, then when they are less awful it is mildly pleasant.
The fact remains; as I don’t trust anyone to act in my interest, the entire success or failure of my work depends on me, and no one else. I’m the only factor that counts in my world. The fact is, I’m doing a piss poor job of that these days. Not that it matters, it would appear that the society I live in is intent on pulling me down to their paltry pathetic level of low standards.
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Our altruism is more rigid than elastic. It only stretches so far, then basic human instinct kicks in, which is self preservation – at that point, there is no one left to trust, only one self. You might say altruism is something we do only for show…either way, in the end, its up to you to help yourself.
I do wonder about it though, when I was younger it felt way better to be kind than it does now…… think I’m going to have to hoof it through my middle aged period as a cantankerous and difficult man, then when that gets old hopefully I’m old enough to be a grandfather to someone, so whatever nice or not, they’d hopefully be pretty supportive.
I guess that’s why religion is so powerful. It’s so damn clear that humans do not deserve any trust whatsoever, so if you can have faith that a god or gods will make everything okay in the end, that makes things a lot easier. Unfortunately, I’ve never found a religion that makes much sense to me.