Ah, hello. I didn’t see you standing there. You must excuse me. I’ve been very busy lately and there has been so much to do that I tend to overlook people more so than when I was a man of leisure. This place? Oh. Yes. Yes, this place is the Museum of Trust. Let me show you around if this is your first time here.

This place was made because it became important for someone to try to define the concept of trust. People used the word. However, it became obvious that when they said the word trust, and people exchanged their versions of the word, both parties began to feel most often betrayed by one another. It was clear that trust was a vulnerability AND a liability. Trying to define such a concept is like trying to define a sunset to a person who has not seen one. The best that could be done was to make a museum. So, here it is.

Why are all the animals on the wall over here? Well, it’s a funny story. You see, a lot of mythologies say that animals had a different existence before people did some naughty deed or another. The animals were then, as a result of the naughty deed, put under the care of human beings. One wall of course has many happy pets who found owners and lived lives of joy while they were on the Earth. That other wall though, which is large indeed, is all the abused animals who were never given a chance and were oftentimes killed in brutal ways. The worst ones of these are the ones where the animals start out loving their owners but because of brutality learn fear and anger which makes their owners exhibit more of the same. Oh that one, yes. It was particularly brutal. The poor creature was cooked alive in a car on purpose. An innocent life trusts by default--no one debates that quality. How such a creature is treated subsequently tells you something about those who are responsible for the care of the critter in question. It is innocence that proves to be the measuring stick of another hard-to-define trait for many--that of evil.

Oh those? Yes, that’s a wall of all the aborted children who were torn apart in the womb and denied a voice. That one there is screaming before the procedure and is trying to use its not yet formed hands to move the instrument away. Children are in a different category to animals, of course. While animals are innocent, one might say that their soul is less complex, although some animals might make you think twice. Human beings, though, they have voices before they are even born, though not many believe that as once did. Why? Well, would you cut up a child before it was born if you heard it beg for its life? Probably not. No. The child must trust the womb it finds itself in, since it has no other alternative. It is, in the common definition, both vulnerable and trusting all at once. That over there, oh, yes, that is a much better wall in this exhibit. Those are the happy children who bonded with their parents and whose trust was not betrayed and were able to come in the world to fulfill their purpose. You generally hear these voices though, so it is not as shocking as the silenced masses that never get the chance to make their mark. Hmm? Oh, no. No, the way all the bad stuff was rationalized in these instances concerned ideas of politics and freedom which were patently false. People were just looking for an excuse to try to have pleasure without consequence. Yes, it is true there are cases like rape, which we have a whole other exhibit for. Let’s go take a look at that!

Rape. Boy oh Boy! We got plenty of that. Rape is ALMOST THE definition of the violation of trust. You see, most often, a person is raped by someone they KNOW. That’s what makes it so extra-damaging. Some folks have a split kind of personality too, where they seem to put themselves around people more likely to rape them. Hmm? No, something about the subconscious unresolved trauma of stuff. Eh? Victim blaming? Look, this museum is giving you a behind-the-scenes tour of the universal processes. The idea of a victim is someone who has had their trust taken, wrongly. There are examples of those, but there are also those out there who are fulfilling karmic contracts they have signed. What? Look, I think the universe prefers the softer lessons, but those softer lessons require a rule book since when most people get down to the planet they start having other impulses that become, to them, more pressing. If there is no rule book, there is nothing to restrain self-gratification and its impulses. Yes, withholding mercy is a kind of violation of trust, one supposes. The same could be said for withholding correction that requires the teaching of restraint. Huh? Why does it have to be diametrically opposed all the time? I dunno. Something about trees, dualities of knowledge, and polarization of the psyche through various energy vortexes in the subtle body which subsequently are experienced as psychology at the lowest level. That’s more above my pay grade. I just point out the exhibits. Anyway back to rape, the essential quality is someone putting some part of their body or extension thereof in a place or manner without permission into the body of someone else. This, definition-wise, then, is rape, and constitutes a violation of trust since the receiving party--that is to meet the definition--should not want this interaction. Eh? Thoughts? Yes, I suppose it is true people can put thoughts in your head you do not want. Mental rape? I suppose an argument could be made, but somehow the violation there requires the volition of the person to be more consistent with the mental process. They more “let it in” than in this instance. The physical version is a blatant violation.

Oh love, yes, love is the exact opposite definition of rape. Different exhibit! We have to spend longer on the negatives. Why? No, I’m not “into that” whatever that means. It’s more that people have trouble where the negative experiences are. Nobody ever complains about being loved too much. I’ve never heard of anyone going to therapy because everybody liked them and they felt an overwhelming sense of universal love. No, not once. Love is a voluntary, consensual thing that can be a physical act involving sex, or not at all. Regardless there is a merging that is done out of trust and acceptance by both parties that allows them to both somehow be greater in that unity than they are by themselves. There are many, many examples of love, but right now, sadly, somewhat like the unborn children exhibit, there is a war on the definition of “love” itself. The basic mistake is that people mix up desire and sex for love, which, you will note, is not the definition I outlined, although it can be a subset. Huh? No. Even the apes know what love is, sometimes to the embarrassment of people. Did you ever see Koko and her kitten? Yeah, if you watch that you are gonna feel miserable about humanity for a day or two. I dunno. I think the animals, when they exhibit traits like that, are showing humanity something about the collective soul of all creation--like a universal mother or something. When trust AND love meet, great things happen, but when they do not, the animals can shame the lofty human in a microsecond. They do not have to be taught trust in the same way. Eh? Well, I think animals can feel love, as any creature on the planet can, with the possible exceptions of insects. Therefore they can reciprocate the feeling of nurturing in a way many human beings cannot or do not. Their trust then hinges on whether or not other creatures give them a “feeling of nurturing love” which is at once more basic and more discernible than many lofty ideals about what love is or is not. No, well, that’s a funny story. Peter Singer, the philosopher once held a philosophy writing contest for why we should or should not eat meat. He wanted to give animals rights. Right, yes, he might have started at people having them first. Right. Ironic?

Let me show you another interesting exhibit. I call this one “The wall of hopeful delusion.” There is a distinct difference between real hope, and false hope. Here is the entire Jewish population in Germany previous to World War II, hoping that their country has not decided to exterminate them. Over there are some Native Americans hoping that the new white settlers will stand by their original treaties although they have reason to suppose that they are lying. Over there are countless patients, with their doctors, and attorneys--with their clients. Where money and uncertain outcomes interface there is often a false promise. Over here is a wall of soldiers that died for something other than their country much to their chagrin. Plenty of service contracts that were violated to be found. On the other wall, though, we have the “did what they said they were gonna do” wall. This wall is practically blinding to look at, since it seems to be a rare thing. Perhaps because it is so rare, that makes it more valuable, and therefore more lustrous. Most of these examples tend to follow moral law as we understand the codification of it. Speaking of moral law, there is another exciting exhibit over here!

This floor exhibit is loosely called “The I knew better but did something else anyway and justified it.” No, it really is not called that. I made that up. There is, it turns out, a difference between the heart and the head of a given person. The head can know a thing is right, and still do something else contrary to that right thing. Likewise, the heart can know what a right action is, but it can be persuaded by the head to not do the thing in question. This is, perhaps, the original source of broken trust. It can come subtlety since the only requirement is for the heart to want something more than the head, or the head to want something more than the heart. Both departments can give a person adequate justification, of course, for doing whatever it is that is contrary to what ought to be done. In extreme cases, one can find people who lambaste all morality because such thoughts make their lives suddenly inconvenient and full of consequence. No, it actually does not change the fact there is a moral law. It is self-evident in that one does not go around killing people willy-nilly because they feel like it. No moral law would mean no life--or at least no guarantee of life beyond defending one’s self against onslaughts of murder.

Naturally, we have the opposite floor exhibit on the other side--"The it was the right thing to do, but it was hard,” exhibit. Usually, the folks that wind up as examples here are not free from the heart and head battle, but they wind up taking the exact right action anyway. Hmm? Oh, generally something about listening to their higher self, or hearing God, or being scared that Satan will come kill them at any second. In the sense of performing the right action, none of those things is any better or worse than the rest, although some of them are certainly more pleasant than others. It is probably why the Bible mentions love and fear as being drivers of behavior that can be used for higher purposes. One we probably think of as more noble than the other, but then, doing the right thing at all seems to be a noble act.

Oh, over there? That is a kind of specific economic subset of not doing the right thing. Insurance fraud and so on. I guess you could say it is not as bad as all the Doctor/Lawyer stuff in some ways, since what is stolen is usually not directly attributable to people in specific since it is redistributing the cost of the crime to many. On the other hand, it is like playing slots with a system that people use to feel like they have safety if a given situation occurs. On still another hand, that entire system exists because people wanted to make money from concepts of risk and so they play the odds that any given thing might happen so insurance companies make a profit. Yes, it is an odd thing to be betting against yourself. It is rather like saying, “I know me, and I am gonna have an accident! I’m a real screw-up that way, so I better get insurance,” except that the real version of this is more like “the government says I have to have insurance so I guess I better do that if I do not want to go to jail.” After all, you trust your government right?

OH MY! Boy, do we have a section for “trusting the experts in government”. Yes, it turns out that there are almost no counter-examples here of people who trusted their government. The only examples that run somewhat against the grain are those where the people had the power in some way, but even those seemed to have a limited shelf-life. The central issue, of course, revolves around power. Most governments have people in positions who are holding some manner of power. This creates a differential, and so it is easy to shut up or disappear people who do not have power because they are a “nobody”. This section over here is dedicated to “whistle blowers who were probably murdered” although we do have a nice counter example to that of “whistle blowers who barely made it.” In each case, to alert or notify someone or something that power structures they trust are not trustworthy is a dangerous position to occupy since the people in those power structures might just decide you are a loose cog. Instead of fixing the problem, of course, they “fix” the whistle blower. Since you no longer hear the whistle blowing, the problem is solved, right? Right. There are, of course, instances where the whistle blower is treated seriously and some action is taken. These people are owed a great debt, typically, by most everyone although often they are paid by no one. The biggest heroes are ones people have never heard of. The most visible ones, though, usually have some other kind of skin in the game. They might be blowing a whistle here, but over there, well, they are part of the problem and not the solution. You did not think you could trust a whistle blower because they were a whistle blower did you? No. I knew you were smarter than that.

Oh, you want to go to THAT section. That’s a biggie. We call this the Messiah section. As far as we know, there was only one human who had a speed run through here and did everything perfectly. The result was that He effectively blew the whistle on everything corrupt, and everyone decided to hate Him for it. They decided, of course, to make a sham trial for imagined crimes, and then they murdered Him. Puzzlingly, for many, this was exactly what was supposed to happen. You see, most people hold their own lives dearer to themselves than those of others, and this Fellow decided to place His own life in the Hands of God at such a high level that the sacrifice of His life allowed everyone else who might not be having such a spectacular speed run to effectively “borrow” His. Of course, it is not a get out of jail free card. You have to modify your behavior in ways that are more consistent with The Way He established, which, if you make a perfect speed run in the world, allows you some ability to say what life is an how it should be lived. There are no counter examples to this specific example, since everyone else is, as you can see, on the checker board of outcomes in this museum on a given activity. There are plenty of people whose speed run is a terrible collection of events and decisions made. This Guy has such a high ranking, that His exhibit serves as the electricity in this museum, and all other illumination is emanating from His example which makes this exhibit specifically hard to see. Now, there are plenty of other people who called themselves Messiah, or else want you to think some other kind of Messiah is coming, but it turns out that these were all mistakes since they did not do the job. Perhaps they wanted to be Messiah for their own ends, and perhaps they were martyred. Those are characteristics of Messiah, but they are not enough to make one a Messiah. Indeed, it seems that the appointment must be made by God, but you are getting into Human Resources at a level that is well above my familiarity. Why God chooses person A or B is not something I am given to know, but we can all see what happens when He does. Yeah, this exhibit kind of puts the rest of the museum to shame, but it also allows those other good deeds to show up as a variety of light. One area this Fellow had a lot of trouble in was around money, and specifically money-changers who had set up an entire economy around the world of worship of God. He became very angry about that situation, and acted in a way that many people often do not recall when they examine the character of this Person. Whips. Yep. Whips. Turned a bunch of tables over. Blew up a Temple after His fake trial. Made another. People still scratch their heads.

But speaking of money, lets move over to that section. Money is a huge thing in the trust department. Why? Well, people can take your money if you trust the wrong kind of people, and it turns out that most everyone is not trustworthy. Why? Well, it goes back to that whole doing what you say you are going to do thing. Most people when they have the little angel and devil on their shoulders tend to listen to the little devil that makes them more greedy and self-entitled. They figure out loopholes or ways to fulfill the words of their agreements without the substance. What? Oh yeah, yeah, that Perfect Guy gets really mad about this kind of thing. Could argue that was his main gripe with the Temple economic system to start with. People had begun to trust money instead of trusting in God. Sure, yes, this would be a form of an idol. Pictures of people are inherently not worth anything, although gold and silver are. Of course, there are times when food is the real thing of value since you cannot eat gold or silver. Sometimes a pile of corn is worth more than ten bars of gold. It is only in trusting that the gold is worth something later on down the road and can be exchanged for that something that makes it worth having. It is, after all, a matter of trust. Hmm? Oh yes. Yes, money can be used for methods of exchange for things that some people find valuable--like guns that shoot rounds at high velocities. What? No, I am not anti-gun, but I do not often find myself in the gun store shopping for guns. I do find myself in the grocery store often shopping for groceries. (or I would if I had to shop when I ate) I suppose I could use a gun to hunt if I lived where a gun would be useful for that. Thing is, a gun--to me, is primitive. I would probably be more inclined to use a bow and arrow. What? You think that’s more primitive? Worked for the natives for forever, and they seemed to do well with the system until guns came along--even when they themselves had guns. The battles they won are often mysteriously populated by other kinds of entities. Something to that whole spirituality thing battling before you...but we digress. Some people have an entire economy built on weapons trading. If you are selling a gun, you definitely have immediate trust issues, since the person you are selling it to might turn around and shoot you with it, and take the money and the gun. You see the problem, I hope. What’s that? Take the trust out? Now you are electronic money.

Over here is our wall of digital currency, which is a newer innovation. Some folks decided that since trust was a major issue around money, maybe you should just take the trust entirely out. If I have a bucket of apples, and you want to buy it, then the idea is I can give you money and you do not need to know who I am for the bucket of apples to be exchanged for value. Of course, practically, I have to pick the apples up. This adds some degree of knowing who I am, since at the very least you might have to ship it. It does me little good if my binary money stays in 1 and 0 land if those 1s and 0s do not correspond to real objects that I can procure. Yes, it is a little like being a poor kid who thinks they are rich staring through the glass case of the Christmas display. You can look all you like, but unless you can figure out a way to map value A to value B, you are not gonna get what you want. In some ways, digital money is a very silly way to deal with the problem of trust, since at its core, if you cannot exchange it for anything real, because no one trusts it, you have what, exactly? Nothing at all.

Which reminds me, I was told to keep my exhibit descriptions down to 4,000 words or less, something about people’s attention spans and being likely to “win” or something. What do you win? I dunno. Probably world fame or something silly. I’d have to trust the people who gave me the advice to implement it, and they said I should not really go near 4,000 because people have the attention spans of gnats. No, that’s not an insult to the gnat. It should be an insult to the people, yes, but for some people...

Let me show you my favorite exhibit, though, before we wrap it up. Over here are pieces of paper that are green that have written on them “In God We Trust”. You wanna know the great irony behind these pieces of paper? Usually, they were not being used for things that indicated a trust in God, but every imaginable vice instead! Yes, there is something unsettling about having that written on money stuffed into a stripper’s underwear--or using it to purchase some manner of stupefying drug illegally. No, I don’t know what “Just Say No” is, but it sounds like life advice that depends on the situation. Oh, to hard drugs? Well, you probably are not gonna say no to them if you are about to have surgery are you? You are probably going to be saying an emphatic “Yes."

Which reminds me, I must be on my way. Limits, you know. Saying no. No, I don’t work for the museum. What gave you that impression? My name? Why, The Rogue Scholar, of course. Pleased to have met you.