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Trust in Humpty Trumpty
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
Humpty Trumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Trumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Trumpty back together again.
Firstly, this is not political, and I am not an American therefore I have no right to criticize nor to lambaste the obvious individual above. It is not the purpose of this short commentary to pursue that. It is unnecessary, as his twitter feed dispels any need for my input.
What troubles me is that the Humpty Dumpty figure is one we, as writers, can construct unwittingly in our prose and can underestimate its impact.
The characters we construct are no different than Humpty. They have (hopefully) slaved over actions, motivations, and goals in every scene we have presented. Through hundreds of pages we have lured the reader into believing in the goodness, innocence, evil or truth of the character’s soul. In fact, it is not merely belief, it is not even love or desire, it is beyond that… it is trust.
Trust is a life thread greater than the desires of the flesh. Trust is beyond the sacrificial reverence of the apostle to devoutly soldier blindly on towards salvation.