Do you trust one who betrays another just to win your trust?

I got to watch the movie SALT…Angelina Jolie…… while on a bus trip to KL from Singapore.

For movie synopsis, you can get it from the web. But one thing struck me about insecurity and loyalty.

Angelina, supposedly a CIA agent caught in the middle of serving two masters – USA’s interests and Russia’s interests due to a string of events in her life since her childhood, was put in a difficult position to choose between being loyal and being a legitimate person with real needs.

The agent Angelina played, was trained in all sorts of weaponry and terrorist handling. Agent SALT was both loving and ruthless, as the situation calls for.

The point i want to focus on is the nature of human beings. If there were someone who is willing to serve me with absolute loyalty, to the degree of betraying their own family, killing loved ones, or destroying anyone to proof his / her loyalty to me, I would not in the least bit feel grand or powerful. In fact, i would feel insecure around such a person, even if I were a mafia king.

I rather interact with someone who would oppose me and is open / transparent about it, on logical and rational grounds. I would not be too concerned about this person doing me harm besides the argument.

The ‘agent SALT’ type of interaction will ironically create a greater sense of insecurity – especially if the key players are all power hungry. She was loyal to the Russian master without fault and yet to get her to kowtow to him more, he shot her husband in cold blood right in front of her. She kept a steel composure and led the Russian master to think she was ok with her husband’s death. But the line was crossed! She was incensed but she hid her emotion well. True to his fears, she turned on him and killed him because he killed the  love of her life.

So it is with us wherever we are. When we do not have an absolute standard for values and do not respect / honour oneself, we will do the bidding of others, to a point where we lose our identity and become a ‘thing’…… sooner or later, we will wake up and realise that we have legitimate needs and want it fulfilled. The question is how long will it take to wake up and how will we handle the scenario?

Without an absolute standard, we are indeed at the mercy of circumstances, as we waver and try to do things to please, yet resentfully. Those who argue in favour of relativism will always be doubted even if they are sincere because there is no single yardstick that they hold to for measurement.

I have experienced much agonising with folks who conveniently switch their position to serve their own needs, rendering agreements useless, and any previously agreed terms meaningless.

Communication will break down, trust will be destroyed and basic human to human respect takes a tumble because everything is relative. Not a space I want to play in. I rather have standards and be consistent in them, though the standards may have flaws – which provide a level playing field for everyone. Shifting goal posts, shifting standards, shifting emotions, are the playground of manipulators.