Here is something that has crossed my mind recently (on several occasions).
TRUST.
So much can be read into that single word, can it not?
Honestly, how many people do you actually trust?
It would be passé for me to ask who you would trust with your life.
Firstly, because that could take so many forms; from combat, to saving you choking on a chicken bone and because we trust people with our lives each and every day.
When you fly you are trusting the pilot, when you take a cab you are trusting the driver; there are doctors, surgeons, police and such like; so in the grand scheme of things trusting someone with your life is not so alien, in fact it is most common.
But let me ask you this:
Who would you lend your last few dollars to?
I mean your last dollars; the money you depend on; the money you need to live by. Who would you trust to repay that money on time?
Who would you let house sit, or house swap with you? Who would you trust not to pry into your private closets, or rummage through your underwear drawer?
To whom would you show your browsing history, or private files, without the fear of being judged?
I guess you could count those people on one hand?
Maybe I am wrong; maybe you are lucky. Or maybe you have more fingers on your hand than I do!
Okay, so trust can be considered on many levels, I agree.
But I have a feeling that you may trust someone you have not met, or have never seen, a little less than you might trust your neighbor, or a work colleague, even an acquaintance; you know, one of those people who are almost your friend!
Am I right?
Generally, I think I am.
Which brings me here, to the point of this rambling.
I often ask people, complete and total strangers to trust me every day. I ask many of them for money, in return for promises.
Why?
Because I offer some services. You see, apart from being a writer and an author, I design books covers, I have an online magazine and a book promotion site.
When it comes to designing covers I promise I shall do my best to create an eye-catching cover, one that will attract people to take a look, to ‘pick the book up and investigate’. Initially I only have my word to give.
I rely on a person’s trust.
The same is true of my magazine.
People buy features and advertising, often two or three months in advance. They are trusting me to produce the magazine, to distribute it, to hold up my end of the bargain.
On my book promotion website, the trust is, that I will provide information as promised, list books as agreed, market the site and so on.
I know I am honest. I know I will do everything within my abilities to ensure I deliver, to keep my promises. Yet many of those who place their trust in me do not know that, not initially, not the first time we make an agreement.
Luckily, I have a track record of successfully completing the tasks I undertake.
I have lots of happy clients and that, in a strange way, turns the tables. You see, once I have done business with someone, once I have done ‘a good job’, I trust them to return to me. I trust that they shall, at some point in the future ask me to help again.
Thankfully, most do.
Now that may, at this point, sound like standard business practice. But what makes all this stand-out for me is, that most of what I do is with people who are, in the physical world, (the Meat-Space), strangers.
I may belong to the same social media ‘groups’ as they. I may have ‘messaged’ or emailed them many times, over many months or even years. I may know (vaguely) what they look like, at least in the best photograph they have, even if it was taken twenty-years ago!
BUT…I have never met them, never heard their voice naturally, or felt their flesh, smelt their scent, seen how they walk, talk and laugh, not in the real world. Yet some I consider to be friends, not the i-space, ethereal electronic type of friend, but Friend with a capitol ‘F’.
And I trust them.
As, (hopefully!), they do me.
Please, do not deceive yourself by thinking that I am a product of this technological age. I am not.
I am far older than that. But I accept it, even somewhat embrace it; although with a certain amount of mistrust and caution as to its future influence and where it may eventually lead us.
But a little vigilance is no bad thing.
So, here I am, connected tentively to un-met people around the globe, via fiber-optics and satellites, yet conducting business on less than a physical handshake; often simply on a few keystrokes that spell out the word ‘Yes’, or even the lesser ‘OK’.
I suggest that is a form of true trust?
If it is, then in my world that is not a bad thing.
If something that can be isolating, even as divisive as the internet, can bring ‘people who have never met’ (we used to term this as ‘strangers’ when I was a child), together by the bond of trust my fear for the future of mankind is somewhat diminished.
All we need now is for those who in power to take note, for those who print ‘In God We Trust’ on our banknotes to realise that, in an ideal world those words would actually read ‘In Us We Trust’.
Just a thought that was running through my mind.
Please feel free to comment, like, share or ‘whatever blows your frock-up’
Paul
Find out more about me, my writings, books & Cover design
http://paulznewpostbox.wix.com/paul-white
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Ramblings from a Writer's Mind 