Trust

Some cultures enjoy a high level of trust; they seem to have an innate ability at generating goodwill amongst their members. Other cultures do not. Trusting others in a non-trusting society is a depleting exercise, and seemingly futile.

For a society to be a trusting one, it would have to enjoy a high degree of cohesiveness. Its members would have to share a common frame of reference. Societies in flux are communities in the making and trust tends to be a rare commodity in those situations.

If one lives in a non-trusting society, one is inoculated at birth and repeatedly thereafter against the pitfalls of certain behavior patterns. There are no misunderstandings due to cultural variables. One Plus One does not equal Two and everyone knows that. They also know what possible numbers it might add up to depending on what kind of digits are being added, who is doing the adding, when, where and how.

When one is thrust upon new horizons, the move up the learning curve can be steep. Learning to speak the language of a new place may not prove to be an easy exercise. It is not so much the language of the letters that we need to learn but that of the soul, the mind and the spirit. These are the levers that we use to negotiate the structures of our relationships and the parameters within which our relationships function.

My friend was giving me an earful: sometimes it is good to start with bad assumptions; there is no need to be so trusting all the time. If your starting point is that someone is going to cheat you, your chances of getting hurt are much less.

I did not know what to say. I could see her logic. Especially me. I always believed in giving everyone an equal amount of benefit of doubt and that it was up to them then to increase or decrease this reserve. But, given the terrains I inhabited, this approach has proven to be exhausting.

Like any person, my actions are driven by needs. And the need in this case was to compensate for the sense of abandonment I experienced growing up. I was so eager to be included; to be part of groups of human enterprise that I overlooked cracks in the foundations. I compromised where another would have walked away, or not endeavored at all.

Human relationships are tender constructs. They can be forged with blood, sweat and tears or with something as simple and powerful as a smile or a handshake. And they are malleable. The same bonds that can break with the first drops of rain can sustain Mount Ararat.

Human relationships are the veins and arteries of our universe. They are the conduits through which we live and breathe. And through them, we connect to the quarries of our souls and mine the seams of whatever is good in our lives. They are too precious to be subjected to the withering winds of our whims, prejudices and greed.