Self & Other

You basically have two fundamental ways to get your needs met. 

1️⃣ Do it yourself

2️⃣ Rely on others

Everyone exists on a spectrum of how much they rely on themselves vs. others, and there are tradeoffs to being in any particular position.

Imagine you live in a hunter-gatherer tribe. The tribe survives by hunting game and gathering fruits, grains and nuts. You are a fantastic hunter, but when the game is scarce, you rely on the gatherers of the tribe to fill the gap. In a healthy society, there is a give and take -- sometimes you're the hero, bringing in the feast, and sometimes you're dependent on others. By being part of the community, you've hedged your bets. You give up some of your feast now, in exchange for safety later.

What happens if you don't trust the gatherers? You suspect they won't include you in the next harvest, and you'll be left to starve. If we feel this way, there are a few natural reactions that we'd expect. 

First, if you can't depend on the gatherers, you may feel you need to depend more on yourself. If you fail to find food, you don't have the safety net of a community to rely on. You risk starvation. Not trusting others raises the expectations and stakes on your own performance to deliver a meal all the time. 

Second, you're unlikely to want to share the fruits of your hunting with the others, if you don’t trust they’ll share with you. Why give up something if you won't get anything in return?

And finally, if you do fail to hunt, and you do have to rely on others for food, you may feel panicked, uncomfortable, even humiliated. While it's good that they helped you out this time, what happens when they inevitably don't in the future?

This little story is meant to illustrate the mechanics, even the economics, of how trust of others and self reliance may function in tandem. The more you can trust others, the less your survival is staked on your individual performance. The less you can trust others, the more you have to rely on yourself to survive.