“Trust no one”

Archaic humans had a hard time talking to each other behind their backs. Because on the savannah, when someone said there is a lion over by the river, everyone needed to trust that the person speaking was telling the truth to stay alive. After all, the skeptic that went to investigate wouldn’t have made it home.

That is so different from the language of today. Email, text messages, phone calls, television, magazines, Twitter, YouTube, the internet is all built on gossip. Most of the language we use today is to scrutinize every word of each other in order to build better bonds of trust. If you receive a good stock tip, you are more likely to listen to that person again.

We simply just don’t give the benefit of the doubt to each other anymore. You have to earn it. Because trusting in people automatically can cause vaccine hesitancy, the splinter of democracy, wars, and so much more.

Evolutionary speaking, that is so different from what we were taught to do. It is natural to believe in what we hear but we can’t just trust everything we hear anymore either. Everyone trusts someone. What you choose to give your attention to is providing a larger platform for that person to speak up. The question is, are these the voices we want to hear? Are they steering us toward a better world?