The Problem with Trust
You can never truly know anyone. Not really. You can love them and understand them and care about them. But they will forever be bubbled off from you, as you are bubbled off from others.
And there is a loss in that, but also a freedom. Does this also mean that we ourselves can never be fully known? I think so. Perhaps that is the heart of our existential loneliness. To remain separate and unknowable, and have others persistently unknowable to us.
It’s hard to trust without this knowledge, leaning into the darkness and trusting the blackness. And yet surely this is what trust is. To believe without knowledge and to have faith without proof. This feels like the dark heart of our fears exposed right there, especially in relationships. Trusting another and yet never fully knowing them. This is truly our softest, most exposed underbelly.
Perhaps our lives are spent mitigating that fear by trying so desperately to ‘know’ each other, to shine a light into this darkness that is the other. This feels both futile and essential; in fact, quintessentially human, this pursuit of the unachievable.
If we don’t spend our lives chasing the light, then our other option is to deny the darkness. We close our eyes to the truth and believe that we actually do have that knowledge of another’s true self. As children, husbands, mothers, we consider ourselves uniquely able to know someone.
Is this the biggest myth of them all? The hoax we all believe in? We look in on other people’s relationships from a god-like perspective and think: how can they not see x? Or: it’s so obvious that y. And return back to the comfort of our own delusion, that we have ‘truly known’ relationships where we uniquely see the whole of our person, our loved one, our known other. It’s a comforting myth.
But is it essential that we have this belief in others, this certainty of who they are, the choices they’ll make, their hopes, desires, fears, values?
And so, onto the hidden joy here. Because, yes, we feel loss when we recognise and step into the darkness that is to not know, not truly, not really. But the joy is there too. A little voice, quiet, on the edges, saying: it’s true for you, too. It’s true for you.
Why is it joyful to not be known? Isn’t this something we crave, we pursue?
Pause, and think of those dreams that we all have on occasion … Nightmares. Maybe. Being exposed, being naked, being caught, no privacy, no space, no quiet. Waking up from a dream where you were naked in public, half dressed leaving the house, using a toilet with no door. Exposure.
Think of our societal response to invasions of our privacy … Alexa listening in on us, surveillance tracking us, those ever present cookies. Is there anything the human race hates so much as feeling opened up and exposed?
If a man’s home is his castle, then a person’s true self is their fortress, guarded with ramparts, moats and an army of dragons. Our flag flying pennant declaring: Thou shalt not know. And we don’t, not really. Not ever. And that’s okay. To love, and trust, and understand another whilst never really knowing them. And to feel that love given to us, while we remain safe within our private fortress. Yes there is loss in the darkness, but oh the dizzying joy of freedom.
