Truth & Trust

Truth: If you don’t trust me, even if I tell you the truth, you still won’t trust me.

Trust: Even If I trust you, you still won’t tell me the truth.

Referring to the conversation above, truth and trust are two pillars of a strong relationship. If you never trust a person, you won’t tell the truth either. If you don’t say the truth, you also won’t be trusted by anybody. This is a two-way relationship. They are good partners. However, in this era, they aren’t a pair of good companions.

There are news stories of people getting cheated because of the lack of trust and truth. In this modern era, people are using AI-generated “deep-fake” content to cheat the victim relying on the original kindness of humans. They used honeyed statements to get the recognition from the victim. This is because they understand and know how to control the nature of humanity. They tend to use moral kidnapping and force their target to do what they’ve asked them to do so.

So, how do we know if something or anything for that matter is true? At the end, humans tend to lose their true humanity. For example, there is no more kindness or being helpful when someone needs. The society has changed to almost inhuman. We won’t greet even our nearest neighbour who we often meet. No hello, no good day greeting. They're like strangers to us. If we see somebody faint on the street, there won’t be anybody to help to call the ambulance. The unconscious person will just be abandoned there. How to judge whether it’s true or fake?

Is truth objective? Is your truth different from my truth? What if you lie to others or you’re getting into a trap set by others? It’s tiring to live under a suspicious society. Are they telling the fact or fake? Should I believe it? If yes, which one should I trust? To view from another perspective, if we always want to find the truth of everything, we will live under tiredness too. Some truth may be good, some truth is mean to us. We need to find a balance between them. As we should always know, there’s no perfection in the world. What we can do is to ensure our balanced scale in life.

Why do we seek the truth even when a lie can be more comforting? As mentioned above, we need a balance. Life is easier if you're able to choose the majority of the good sides in your life. You can’t totally avoid the bad sides. To my understanding, bad sides is like a must-undergo training in order to make you stronger. If we know that we’re going to lie to someone, we must ensure that we have the ability to handle the matter if the lie is exposed, by minimising the harm to the victim. It’s not necessary to always tell the truth. A white lie sometimes works better and is more comforting.

If we do value truth, how do we cling to it in a changing world? In my opinion, education and communication skills play an important role here. Human nature is inherently good. We need to know the basic principle of true or false for things, from big things to small things. Based on the learning, we are able to judge and make decisions. In this progress, communication skill is important. It acts like a type of lubricant to ensure the truth and trust go on smoothly.

From my perspective, of course, I would like to be an honest person, telling the truth always and people putting their trust on me. However, it’s important to know how to balance them and survive in this tricky world.