[Today’s run: 4.8 miles]
Sometimes it strikes me how much our lives are built on trust.
We start out as infants, then children, not understanding the input that comes through our senses. We literally don’t know what to make of it all. With direction from siblings, parents, teachers, all sorts of people, we start to sort out the messages that are coming in.
Later as adults we think maybe we understand more. Maybe some people do. I think I reached my pinnacle of knowledge at around 35. After 45 then, I think maybe I would understand my senses (hearing, seeing) if the sensory equipment would just hang on and work right.
I’ve had a little bit of experience with adults that are thrown back into the need for stronger trust. I’ve known some blind people and some people who saw things that other people couldn’t see.
I was wondering about this. When I get old and my seeing and hearing don’t work very much, I’ll be thrown back into trust like I haven’t been since I was a child. And I think maybe it is not too soon to select some people I can lean on when necessary, and trust them to interpret events.
Every once in awhile you hear about some poor old person, living alone, who finds a new friend (sometimes a whole bunch of new friends) that are happy to tell them where to put their money or what paper to sign. I guess that is sad if the older person survives to see the error. Maybe it is not so sad if they get some companionship and love in the last days.
Not that I want to sound morbid about this. Look around. How many things can you state from direct personal experience? Who painted the Mona Lisa? Were you there? Most of our existence is trust. Life is like a giant Wikipedia: all sorts of people are putting in their two cents, a lot of it may be wrong.
There are certain people, even if they are wrong that is ok with me.
2 replies on “Trust (faith)”
Our entire economy is built on trust. Those who work for a living are paid after-the-fact with paper or electronically. Trust that payment will be made for the work. Trust that the currency will be honored in exchange for goods at the value it is meant to have. And with electronic funds – trust that the funds will be where they are supposed to be. (The same can be made for investments with the exception of risk – which requires a premium (higher return than an investment having less risk) for the investment to make sense. )
When there is stress in the economy this trust can go away. (And the “little people” usually get hurt the worst.) In fact, if it goes away just a bit a vicious cycle can follow causing an accelerated erosion of trust beyond what the initial circumstances would call for. Over 100 years ago – before we had any gov’t regulation to speak of – this would be called a “panic.” Now we have the SEC, the OCC, the FRB, the FDIC, SOX, etc. to help bolster our trust. Yet we experienced the worst calamity since the Great Depression. Oddly, the best thing to do after such an event is lie – betray trust. If a theater is on fire the honest thing to do is yell “run” – with ruinous consequences. In the economy, our leaders would do better by us all to say there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Politicians get elected by saying wonderful things about what they can do. They keep their jobs by saying what wonderful things they have done. So this role of understating the seriousness of a calamity suits them professionally. It’s a good fit.
Thanks for that comment. It is something I will want to read over a few times and think about.