Self-balancing

Simple monocells survive by a process of self-balancing. The cell adjusts itself to the incoming stimulus. When the stimulus is too great, the cell may die.

More complex life-forms still operate under this basic principle of self-balancing. Good parenting will teach the growing child to avoid stimuli which are too great (open fires, road traffic, etc.) and which are to be embraced (healthy eating regime, maintaining an adequate body temperature, etc.) which they in turn have learned from their parents and from other sources.

Having grown to adulthood, one can expect from 'reliable' sources only what they have learned in their own process of self-balancing. Though there are occasionally altruistic individuals who see this clearly and act from a place of love, modern-day self-balancing includes a leaning towards commodity accumulation, and we may expect that any information from such sources will be found to be unreliable.

And so in considering this game of self-balancing, if one wishes to trust anyone at all, it's better that they trust themselves, and start to learn rules of self-maintenance, and not only learn them, but train oneself to obey them.

We have ultimately to cut out any desire to rely on any external person's 'integrity', without sorrow at the loss of friendship, and become as far as possible self-reliant.

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