Something's been bothering the night brain. I'm going to dump it onto here, and I'll try to keep a coherent narrative. "Try" being the key word.
See, my shrink told me that I should expect only the bare minimum out of others, and I've been accepting that as true. There's a contradiction in here, though. I've also learned that trust is a Very Good Thing™ (per
The Evolution of Trust), since it's a major reason for why our species is able to do great things. Complete distrust of all others is a terrible strategy. I'm more on the distrustful end, but the theory book says I should trust others, even if it's merely for my own personal gain.
How do you reconcile "trust is good" and "expect only the bare minimum out of people"? Like, trust needs you to expect; they're opposed and contradictory ideas. If I expect only the bare minimum, how do you trust others to do good to you beyond a societal minimum? If I trust, is it not expecting beyond that minimum?
I suppose the thing that's tying me up is that my trust unit is pretty much broken. It defaults to "complete distrust" for strangers. It's very selective, and it doesn't allow any inheritance of trust. Bay12-the-group-of-people, I mildly distrust (which is saying something, considering the default), but the individuals within Bay12? Strangers, all of you. I don't PM people unless I have a damn good reason for this exact reason. It takes willpower to do that. I'm sure if you were to PM me right now, I'd be thinking "What's the bare minimum I can reply with, given the default set of boundaries and known personality?" and "How far can I restrict those boundaries without losing that bare minimum?" in a loop while coming up with a reply.
Willpower is the only thing that lets me override the decidedly-faulty trust unit and allow expanding the boundaries. Even then, it's a leap of faith. I have been told that there is "no such thing as mind control", and that has helped me get over the times that I do fall.
(I'll probably send this post to my shrink, now that I'll think of it.)