Trust

I have trust issues, a lot of them. They seem to pop up everywhere I am in contact with other people. I haven’t really talked about this much. But, I know that these issues color my social world. What’s worse, and makes it much harder, is the fact that I’m not alone.

There seems to be trust issues everywhere. I would guess you probably have some too. So, I’m going to try to explore my trust issues. While that is happening I’m making a request of you. Identify what might be your own trust issues. I don’t know what you might want to do with them, but realize, as I am, that social reality, what’s possible between human beings, is limited and defined by them.

I have trust issues. I’ve been hurt by other human beings. I’ve hurt myself with them. In fact, social reality teems with hurtful mistrust. Everywhere I go, I seem to meet distrust, my own or somebody else’s. The level of social distrust is so high that being a gun totin’ society seems to make sense. I don’t like it, but I understand it. I live in a world where distrust is ubiquitous. The water I swim in, the connections I share in, seems to be contaminated by mistrust. Social reality contains more distrust than I can handle.

I’ve grown up in this world, and I’ve almost never heard this dimension of social life adequately addressed. I’ve been exposed to the golden rule and lots of moral aphorisms that seem to apply, but they don’t really get down to how to deal with this part of social reality. I’ve heard a kind of economic analysis. The banks won’t lend, small businesses won’t hire, capital won’t flow, if there is sufficient distrust. It appears that the economy is broken, because trust is in short supply. I could go on to the housing and labor markets, or point at the Congress, or political gridlock, or how litigious we are. I have this terrible feeling that even the environment is suffering from our lack of trust.

And, I have trust issues. I’ve tried to learn how to take care of myself. This has been hard to learn. As I have grown older I have gotten better at it. I eventually shifted my gaze from others (my distrust of them) to myself (my distrust of me). Growing more solid with, and truly befriending myself, has been difficult, but this has reduced some of the distrust in my world. Learning all that trusting myself entailed, has made a big difference. Still there is plenty of mistrust. I keep noticing it, which is in part, how I know I still have trust issues.

Learning to trust myself has, in part, to do with noticing the level of distrust inherent in every social system I participate in. I try to notice and respond according to my values. Instead, of letting the level of ambient distrust determine how I act. In some ways this is really good, it gives me more autonomy, and I am able to be more myself, but it also attracts the notice of others, who now distrust me (thinking I want to control them). Usually, this kind of attention is run by fear, and isn’t typically very friendly (see my last Slow Lane piece about the prejudice against leadership). Sometimes any move can be seen as threatening.

I’m not dealing with this very well. That’s what I mean by saying I have trust issues. I don’t trust adequately those who don’t trust me. It isn’t enough to trust myself, to know that I have good intentions. In fact, that seems to just inflame things. My freedom, and the quality of the interaction, depends upon me, but I’m not sure how? I can’t ignore the distrust aimed at me. That would be disrespectful, and avoids the possibility that I might be doing something that warrants distrust. I also know better than take it all personally. I have learned that lesson the hard way. But, what do I do?

I don’t really have a satisfying solution. Learning to trust myself makes many trust issues more soluble, but that has only earned me more challenging trust issues. Right now, I have the possibility of learning. I’m grateful for that. It may be learning while under fire, but I’m still learning, and it just might be I need to learn how to deal with the distrust that comes toward me firing. I can see that possibility. People have been so hurt by other people. It’s sad. I know that I have hurt my share. Probably, at some point; I have been the one who fired first and asked questions later. Maybe, I still am.

I have trust issues. In some ways, I’m not surprised. I am a human being; I live in a sea of frothing relationships. I’m not responsible for all of them, but they all affect me. The waves wash into, and sometimes over me. To stay afloat, to be me fully (whatever that is), I’ve got to learn how to be distrust-worthy. Can I stay me, respectfully, even when another sees me totally from their perspective? Or, doesn’t see me at all?

Time only will tell. In the meantime I have trust issues. I guess I’m glad I do. Having them suggests to me that I’m still on the playground, playing, trying to figure out how to make friends, looking for playmates, and discovering a little more about this challenging thing called being human. Probably, not being so good at it, insures that I have plenty of possible playmates.

A Prejudice Against Leadership

A tension is running through me. It seems to make a sound. That sound is growing louder. It is making me uncomfortable and anxious. I want to write about it, to explore what it is, but I feel more nervous as I get closer to it. That is usually a sign of how much ambivalence I feel. I know the tension says something about me, and I’m not sure I want to find out what. I am really nervous about letting this part of my experience be seen. I will go ahead, because I am that kind of fool, but I do so knowing that I have mixed feelings about what I am looking at. I am aware of how much prejudice against leadership I feel, and I am becoming aware of what that says about me.

It is deep in my bones. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.  I grew up, in some ways, as one who learned to rely on myself. Some of my beauty is related to how much responsibility I have taken for myself. I like who I have become. All of this is true. It is only recently that I finally, after years of misdirection and suffering, came into my own. I have learned how to take care of myself. Now, I’m looking at how this hard won achievement is incomplete. I don’t want to relinquish and bow down to anyone. In so doing, I am seeing, I am unwilling to take responsibility for my deeply human partialness.

I want to be free of leaders, teachers, therapists, parents and would-be priests. I don’t want anyone standing between me, and the Great Mystery. I don’t like feeling small, undeveloped, inadequate, or somehow stupid and blind. When anyone has the audacity to presume they know or experience something more thoroughly than I, I usually don’t believe them, don’t trust them, and quickly dismiss them. I do kill them, but non-violently. They are still dead to me.

All of this, the indiscriminant killing, is my way of protecting myself against the unscrupulous charlatans out there, who would prey on my desire to be fully human. No body is going to take advantage of my developmental desire, my longing for wholeness. No more, will I hope that others will lead me to where I know I need to go. I know that is the only way one can go.

Oh but, I’m weary. So tired that I’m vulnerable. So tired that I make mistakes So tired that sometimes I wish there were someone else who could help me carry my desire a step further. But, if anyone comes close and offers in any way, I am deeply suspicious. They better be careful.  I am likely to turn on them. I want a teacher but he, or she, better not try to teach me anything. On the other hand, what good is a teacher who doesn’t? The truth is, I’m not very tolerant of either. I want to be fed, but primarily, only in my way.

I know this is true about me. I don’t like admitting it. I am so unenlightened, so human, so ordinary. I only admit it now to myself because I want to deal better with the prejudice I face each time I care enough to try to take on a leadership role. I’m also tired of being shot at, disparaged, reduced and otherwise mistreated. Trying to make a difference, and caring about those around me, is only partly vain, sometimes it is genuine. I can be human in that way too. But, I’m often wary of it.  I don’t like being the object of suspicion.

I know I have no real right to assume any role of leadership as long as I harbor the will to disregard others who are genuinely trying to help me along the way. I know I have no right to complain about being shot at as long as I hold a gun in my hand. I know I don’t handle it well, being the object of suspicion. It is precisely because I haven’t given up protecting myself in this way. I don’t want to go on and become the caring elder. Or, the leader, I could be. I am torn open. When it means letting go of protecting myself in this old way. Can I let myself learn from, rely upon, and trust an other?

I don’t have any say about the prejudice against leadership in the world. I will just have to learn to deal with it. I know I can start dealing with it better, if I am willing to begin right here in my heart. If I am on a course that will carry me ultimately into a real elderhood then I’ve got to trust myself enough that I won’t kill off the food bearers who are trying to help me along the way. Also, I know, I can’t really become one of them until I can admit their existence into my heart.

The journey toward elderhood has so many twists and turns to it. I keep meeting myself on this road. Strangely, I come in many forms yet I still have to deal with the same old one — me — if I’m going to make further progress along the way.

I notice too, that alongside the baggage of my old ways, the self I know, is a stranger, laughing, and accompanying me. I hope you are noticing something like him, or her, too.