Trust

Trust. Trust is something that seems so undermined, that I no longer feel that we, as a species, would trust any human-made solution to our current environmental/economic crisis. It seems, that people no longer believe in people. And I guess there is good reason for this. Never-the-less, this development concerns me, it leaves me wondering about our social nature. The other, who is all of us, seems to threaten us. The other, each of us, seems to be a big bogey-man, an obstacle to peace, stability, and progress. Trust is low and very conditional. I am suffering because I am assumed to be a threat, before I even get a chance to interact. I am deemed untrust-worthy until I prove myself trust-worthy.

Maybe this is the way things are supposed to be. Maybe access to the commons is supposed to be contingent upon the right kind of behavior. I feel troubled by the level of distrust that seems to prevail everywhere however. I’m not talking about the kind of trust involved in leaving the door to your house, or car, unlocked. I’m talking about the kind of trust that is involved in leaving one’s heart and mind unlocked, the kind of trust that means engaging openly with an other.

I’ve been a psychotherapist long enough to know that this kind of trust is an inside job. The glib way to say it is that we trust others exactly a much as we trust ourselves. This seems to be one of the biggest problems that faces us. How can I trust another if I can’t trust me? Hold on, don’t be your self yet, because I’m not sure I can handle it. Hold on, I’m not even sure I can handle me being me yet. Until I am sure about me being me, I’m not really able to handle you being you. And if I’m just faking it, to reassure myself I’m trust-worthy, then everyone is suspect, because they might upset my delicate balance.

Unfortunately, even trusting your self is inadequate. The other is simply a shadowy projection of the self, not truly an other with mysterious, uncertain origins. Now reality is just too psychological. Self-trust is necessary, but only a step in the right direction. This is, admittedly, a step that is rarely taken. It represents a developmental achievement, which does ease distrust, but it doesn’t actually let the wild other run free. The other is satisfyingly us, a kind of unity gets to be in the world, but only at the price of diversity. The other isn’t perceived as having a reality of its own.

I’m not really too good at being someone’s projection. Actually, I resent it. I don’t want to be that tame. Instead, I want to be met. to have my authentic aliveness interact with another’s, to be a wild and uncertain beings meeting.  Each interaction, I would hope, has a flavor of first contact — me, alien, you, just as alien. Now what?

But what is trust then? Certainly it isn’t something I want to place in something or someone else. That is a risk. Keeping it to myself is an option, I know me well enough to at least be predictable. But, wait a minute! I also know myself well enough to know I have limitations, I may not perceive all the possible threats. I’m not totally trust-worthy. Trusting me is a better bet, for sure, than trusting another, but not a sure one. Is there a sure one?

I don’t think there is. Reality is a wild crapshoot. Yuck, and of course! I place my trust in the best illusion I can find, and only then, because it reassures me, not because it renders me any more secure. Strangely, and paradoxically, when I get this vulnerable, when I realize this is the way life is, that everything and everyone that exists is equally uncertain and vulnerable in this way: I become more trust-worthy, and more trusting. The untrust-worthiness of life generates greater trust.

This is the trust I want to bring to life. The trust-worthiness of knowing of how untrust-worthy life can be. The other doesn’t exist in any way for my sake. I don’t exist in any way for their sake. We share the vulnerability that comes with existence, and we can’t do anything about it.

I trust how untrust-worthy life is. That makes the other something I have no way of relating to. That makes of me an innocent, an empty-pocketed traveler, in a mysterious world, encountering the other like I would an ocean, a mountain, a herd of elk, or any other phenomena of nature. I am trust-worthy because I no longer carry a need for trust.

This is the kind of trust that can make relations more trust-worthy, but is it the kind of trust I am willing to put my faith in?