Trust, both seen and unseen
It's a quarter past eight and I am seated in an airport lounge, not by habit but by happenstance. To my right a man has spread his possessions across the table as though it were his home office. His bag stands open. His laptop — new, and expensive by the look of it — rests on the tabletop among a pair of headphones, an iPad, and other practical things arranged in plain sight. Then he rises, without ceremony, and casually walks away.
And I wonder: what is his relationship here that gives him the confidence that his possessions are safe from theft or abuse?
Trust is a mysterious and remarkable thing to me, akin to faith. I see it all the time when I travel. And travel is something I love and loathe simultaneously, making the whole equation that much more complicated and confounding.
I’m amazed at the number of people who will leave their belongings temporarily at cafes, lounges, airports, etc., with apparent ease. Perhaps to get a coffee. Perhaps to use the restroom. Perhaps for obvious reasons at all.
And I often contemplate, no matter wherever or how often I see this, what is the source of such trust? Is it that they feel their possessions valuable only to them and therefore no one would casually walk away with them? Is it that they the security cameras, real or imagined, serve as a strong enough deterrent or as evidence after the event of theft to keep their items safe? Is it a kind of ignorance, willful or otherwise, that makes them oblivious to the darker, more corrupt side of human nature?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines trust as a belief that someone or something is good, sincere, honest, safe, or dependable—and will not harm, deceive, or let you down.
Honest. Safe. Dependable.
These are priceless qualities. Some people seem to treat them with almost frivolous abandon. I hold them dear as they are very difficult to find and once found even rarer to remain stable over time and across environments and circumstances.
But I pretend neither omniscience nor wisdom. Perhaps those people possess some knowledge or foresight about the safety of their items that I do not. Perhaps good fortune has long been by their side so as not to diminish their confidence in their fellow humans. Perhaps I’m overly protective or paranoid, always assuming the presence of risk or danger when there is none.
Perhaps just I’m overthinking, which I’m prone to doing. A function that I can be guilty of at times of uncertainty or anxiety, though I’m unaware of such feelings at the moment.
The man returned to his seat. His items untouched.
Was it luck? Coincidence? Fate? Was it just random causality? Was it some unseen connection between things we cannot perceive or the absence of it?
I realize it is rather absurd or irrational to be thinking of these things when nothing harmful has happened. But that is why I pay attention to them. What is it that made this occasion safe when another might not have been? What is it that I read in this space as risk that he either didn’t recognize or ignored?
Add to this my fascination with the tedious and mundane, the subtleness of peoples decisions, actions, and body language are more about how I see the things that on the surface appear trivial but may or may not be. Small things I notice throughout my day that may or may not be of consequence in a world where interdependence strongly suggests that everything is significant, though we may not see the progression or perceive an event as an endless web of events.
The man closed his laptop, gathered his things, and left without looking back. Whatever his trust was built on, he didn’t seem to pay it any mind. I sat a while longer, keeping half an eye on my own bag, wondering what it would take for me to leave mine so completely to the trust of things both seen and unseen.
By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.