Trust Yearning and Trust Disappointment

The Trust Deficit Tragedy

Some time after returning from a few-day hike in the desert, I forget how miraculous a working faucet is. The food, paved roads, even the words we use-these are networks of meaning and sustenance made by people and nature. We usually don't feel them, just like we take the air we breathe for granted. Because we don't notice, we don't derive satisfaction from the local market, the police, or our neighbors, we withdraw.

Worse, feeling betrayed, we want to aggressively react. Our most popular books, films, and online communities often support this tragic journey with narratives of betrayal, distrust, and destruction.

Many aspects of these narratives can be traced psychologically, yet they remain illogical, particularly the notion of destruction as a solution.

Trust Disappointment and Aggression

The hurt we feel after trust failure, the sense of betrayal, leads us to a familiar story. Once we were helpless; then we grew into strength, often presented as wisdom. Now, able to inflict pain, boycott, or even kill, we turn into agents of reaction. Many variations emerge, but the underlying theme remains: "trust no one."

These narratives magically create trusted in-groups. The lone hero fan joins a community of people who "understand how the world really works." This devout community prays, and this is our chant: "There is no trust except in oneself," or we pray, "there is no trust but in God or money," yet never, ever in other people.

This is our secret conspiracy: the yearning for trust creates cultural celebrations of distrust, perpetuating "trust no one" communities.

Yearning for Trust Fertilizes Distrust

This yearning-a deep drive for reliable, felt, trustworthy connection-and its sublimation into hostility, is behind most "trust no one but me" communities, including institutional religions, brotherhoods in arms, and online communities. More on this later.

The Real Danger Behind Trust Disappointment

Trust disappointment follows unfulfilled trust yearning. The need that prolongs trust disappointment is real, not imagined. When loved ones betray, institutions fail, or leaders lie, the consequences are tangible. One consequence is that a person outside a trust ecosystem is weakened. Even sociopaths recognize this.

The hurt goes deeper than real-life consequences. It strikes at our fundamental need for reliable connection. A child abandoned by parents, a soldier injured by stupidity, a citizen failed by government-such experiences compound over time and leave deep scars. Feelings of aggression and revenge may carry on for life.

Such experiences seek resolution, making controlled, smaller trust ecosystems necessary for physical and psychological survival. The tragedy isn't the disappointment itself; it's the hostility inherent in the "trust no one but..." solution, prescribing harmful and violent "solutions". Thus, the narrative of distrust perpetuates itself.

Cultural Narratives of Betrayal

In the "trust no one" religion, a predictable tale emerges: The hero initially trusts, then receives "life lessons."

Biblical protagonists illustrate this vividly. Joseph, betrayed twice, ultimately saves. Conversely, Samson is drawn to repeatedly place trust in the wrong ecosystem, ultimately resolving his tragedy through violence, destroying everyone, including himself.

In the Samson timeline, people trusted by the hero end up either useless observers, traitors, or dead-all untrustworthy. Sometimes, in more elaborate plots, there's a loyal dog, a blind mentor, or a weapon that gets a name.

This kind of plot is engineered to affirm the deepest fear, to neutralize the expectation, the yearning. The only thing left to do in these stories is invest in an orgy of destruction. It's Samson, betrayed thrice, killing all and himself.

These narratives perpetuate a mimetic belief that trust is dangerous, foolish, and inevitably punished. This logic of "trust no one" is presented as a collected wisdom rather than our tragedy.

Yet we don't leave these stories embracing isolation. Instead, we become transformed and connected, united by shared distrust of an external entity. The trust ecosystem shapeshifts with leaders declaring, "trust no one, but trust me, because I trust you, the viewer, to understand."

This pattern extends from stories into society. Conspiracy groups, partisan political movements, even sectarian religions satisfy trust yearning through chanting: "trust no one (but me)." Trust-disappointed people outwardly claim to have lost trust, yet inwardly they yearn to build it, redirecting their desire through scapegoats.

Trust's Neurobiological Foundations

Even though I attempt to quantify trust ecosystems here TrustEngineer GPT, trust isn't merely social or psychological-it grows on neurobiological foundations. In mammals, young offspring arise from trust, thus their bodies are wired for it. When trust is broken, yearning expresses itself not only through "trust no one" narratives but also through the body.

MDMA demonstrates remarkable effectiveness in treating PTSD, especially among combat veterans. This isn't accidental. MDMA primarily releases neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin-the "trust hormone." For those whose trust in humans has been damaged by combat, MDMA temporarily restores neurochemical conditions enabling trust.

When a soldier experiences betrayal at the systemic level-watching what people can do to each other in the horror that is war, perhaps being sent into danger without proper support, or watching trusted systems fail to protect comrades-both psychological and neurological adaptations occur that make trust difficult or impossible.

This biological perspective highlights trust yearning's profound importance. Trust isn't optional-it's hardwired. When lacking, complex behaviors emerge. If basic trust becomes neurologically impossible, the brain doesn't abandon its quest; the drive persists but expresses differently.

The tragedy deepens when the injured human cannot trust anyone-not even themselves or another force. Literally no one.

Trust-disappointed individuals often form intense bonds within alternative communities. The neurochemical rewards of belonging-oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin-are so fundamental that the brain finds alternative pathways, which may appear dysfunctional externally.

This perspective isn't judgmental of the pain but critical of certain solutions. Behaviors attributed to ideology or personality might better be seen as adaptations to damaged trust ecosystems, as trust yearning-the brain's effort to satisfy trust when conventional paths are blocked.

Similar patterns appear following early attachment disruptions. Children with unpredictable caregiving develop neurological adaptations hindering trust. Though protective initially, these adaptations become a problem later. Yet, trust yearning persists, shaping complex relationship patterns. The brain's persistence in seeking trust-even when damaged-underscores its fundamental nature. We are neurologically trust-seeking creatures, even if we often fail to notice it.

Am I a Samson or a Joseph?

Trust disappointment will change us. When the trust ecosystem fails, we stand at a crossroads between two biblical archetypes. Samson, betrayed by Delilah, channeled his disappointment into destruction - pulling down the temple columns, destroying his enemies and himself. Joseph, sold by his brothers into slavery, thrown into jail in Egypt, transformed his trust yearning into patient reconstruction of trust in a foreign land, saves his family and Egypt from death by famine.

Both faced acute trust matrix collapse. Both had power. The difference lies in their orientation toward the future trust ecosystem. Samson destroys; Joseph builds. When caught in severe trust disappointment, this choice confronts me - to destroy what remains of the trust infrastructure out of righteous anger, or to build new trust anchors in unfamiliar terrain. Neither path is painless. Joseph's years in slavery and prison are horrible, and Samson's final act had a certain brutal effectiveness. I notice in myself, and in those I train, that we cycle between these responses - sometimes collapsing trust structures that harm us, sometimes building new ones where none existed. The wisdom lies not in deciding blindly between Samson and Joseph, but in cool understanding when each response serves the integrity of our broader trust matrix. There are times to pull down columns and times to interpret dreams and store grain. The emotional pain is a crossroad, walk wisely.