Trust is a Mechanism of Distraction – 2011

November 2011

Trust is a mechanism of distraction. The moment you place trust in someone or something, your brain has decided NOT to worry about the potential damage or pain that might occur if that trust is broken. When this choice is made, your brain immediately changes the direction, and more importantly, the physical state of thinking. Take for example, a tourist in a foreign country who is horribly afraid of being pick-pocketed or mugged. As he walks the streets and sidewalks, he is paranoid of every passer by; he is thinking about how everyone is getting too close or looks suspicious. He acknowledges that he might be too worried, but it doesn't help him feel any better. His thoughts, no matter what he thinks or says to himself, are only controlled by his anxiety; the physical state of his brain. No amount of self-talk can help if that flow of thought is created in that mind state. The choice to stop and TRUST that no one will mug him is only possible if the brain is directed, or distracted, out of that state and into a more focused, stable state. 

Trust is the distraction from anxiety that allows humans to maintain outward focus in the face of danger or trouble. It doesn't change the actual outcome of the situation, but it is a mechanism to block out anxious input and focus on other inputs. The word trust is nothing but the human interpretation of a release or diss-allowance of worry. In this way, relief is only the stable acknowledgement of an end of anxious thought. Emotions as we experience/know them are just the perceived interpretations of sets of stimulation currently driving our bodies and thought. The shift between states allows for distraction from the previous one, and the human perception of this pushes, or rather feeds, the new state and emotion(s) we seem to feel. Our active thoughts then use the 5 sensory inputs as both context and content simultaneously to shape the patterns of pathways in our brain, creating memories, reason, logic, fears, obsessions, dreams, etc. Everything we know is just the recollection of associations, or connections, our brain uses as we consciously reassess them and the world around us to create new connections.

So if our thoughts are slave to the state of our brain's functioning, then we are less in control of ourselves than we like to believe. As much as we THINK we are in control, at any given moment those thoughts are being driven by a physical mechanism in the brain. This is not surprising AT ALL. Consider a starving person. The lack of nutrition and sustenance renders all humans weak, it will lead to death → the eternal cease of all brain activity. The pain and anxiety leading up to death is a natural response for the starving brain being forced into a brain state that will most likely search for food for survival. It's plain to see that the forces that control our thoughts are just as easily controlled by external, physical forces. Drugs (recreational) no matter what variety, chemically induce new, unnatural brain states that seem bizarre, relaxing, or even overstimulating. Our knowledge and conception of the physical world around us is forever limited by only 5 senses that detect and interpret reflections, vibrations, collisions, and other strange phenomenon of the matter around us. We are made of this matter. The reality we know is an illusion of the brain as it harvests input and data from the only windows we have into material existence.