The Throne of Trust

"The Lifestyle" is filled with statements of trust.  I just attended a discussion in Second Life led by Kaddan Yue and the best thing that I took away from it was that we must examine our statements.  The unexamined life is not worth living, after all, says Socrates.  It is also a very good idea to examine statements especially about trust especially in a lifestyle that defines parameters and boundaries and limits.   So, what does it  mean to examine a statement?  It means, to ask questions and dig deeper into the meaning of whatever it is that we simply take for granted.  The word "trust" is one of those words whose meaning it is possible to take for granted, given how much we use the word in the lifestyle.  My own avatar profile says that I will even define my personal limits based on shared values and long-term trust: it is my hope that, one day, I know and trust a person so thoroughly that I could put the safety of my feelings in that person's total control.

How do we establish trust?  After examining that question for a long time, it seems as though "to establish trust" is not exactly an accurate description of what takes place between two people who grow to rely on each other.  It sounds too active a process for trust's delicate, slow development.  Aside from the very generalized trust in humankind to function in the best interest of its own species, there is a fundamental threshold of trust (a "baseline" as Miss Kaddan calls it) each person carries and builds upon with others.  A person feels more and more trust with a partner, or less and less trust with a partner, as time goes on, having started from that initial baseline.  That initial baseline comes from first impressions: how much care the person takes in communicating.  And second impressions: whether the person's behaviour matches the person's words.  Third, fourth, fiftieth impressions:  whether the person appears to be (and is actually) invested in the relationship.  But the process of establishing trust, the day by day accumulation of comfort and certainty as situations test and try the feelings of both people, that process is actually a consequence of other things.

"Can trust be broken in an instant, after years and years of building?"   I am not convinced that it works that way.  After years of building the comfort and certainty between partners, there is bound to be something that tests the faith.  (The trials and tests that establish trust over the years prove  that this will inevitably be so.  "Shit happens.  Shit did happen.  Shit will continue to happen.")   I look at it this way:  if a relationship with me is a castle where we both live, then trust is the throne.  Trust is the throne that, once seated upon it, makes you a King Above All Men in my eyes, by which I kneel and admire You.  The throne is in the centre of the castle, and many doors must be opened, many thresholds crossed, to reach the throne room.  As with Kings and their castles, trust gets tested:  and I would be a fool to remove the King from his throne just for being tested by the outside world.  Rather,  I would ask some questions.  I would want to know where the vulnerability is, why the King is susceptible, and in fact whether the King likes it that way.   I would want to know how this fits into the picture of the King I have lived with for so long.  "Why did you do what you did? How does this fit, or not fit, into our established pattern of needs and exploration?  How can I protect myself against the pain this may cause if you do it again?"   I like to think that the answers to such an examination would be, if I were asking You, "I did what I did because I know we can handle it.  It fits because, though we may not have discussed it yet, after we talk about it more, you might come to agree with me.  You won't need to protect yourself because I will protect you, if after talking more about it you remain truly pained by it."     Or, at the very least, "I am sorry.  I will never do it again."  The first answer, though, would tell me that there is no breach in the castle walls.