To trust or not to trust...
During one of my sleepless wandering of the virtual world I found this comment: ‘I would rather get burned one hundred times by trusting people on faith than to miss the one good person I didn’t trust out of fear.’Having been burned myself quite a few times, and having become a selfish bastard, I have some very strong views against this comment. Now, instead of raving away my thoughts, I’d rather leave it to you… so feel free and tell me what do you think?
posted by Shaman Dandulla at 12:10 AM
17 Comments:
Pretty good saying. I wouldn't agree with it though. I'm sort of like you, but I wouldn't call myself selfish.
Circumspection is something that all species require to survive, but it's possible to have too much of a good thing, I suppose. I think I was a lot more trusting when I was younger, but I don't think I'm so jaded that I don't trust people at all.
So perhaps this is pertinent:
shinjiru (to trust or believe)
shinjirarenai (unable to trust or believe).
Hope you're not having a sleepless night tonight!
I would never get into a car with a stranger. Let's face it. There is good and there is evil, and I like to avoid evil.
There is much more harm in turning a blind eye to evil than in overlooking goodness
Well I’ve never been Madre (mother) Teresa Leon, and with time passing by and getting older… I think I look more after myself than anyone else..
“… and now my e-mail client has become very good at doing so on its own” did you send your email to some training school Claude??? It really seems to me that you know quite a lot about I meandri (maze, nooks and crannies) dell’Internet… how about getting together one of these days? May be via email, chat? Or better telephone... Nea… talking it over di fronte ad un espresso cremoso (in front of a creamy espresso) would be much nicer, and you know that you can always trust me…
Fidarsi è bene, non fidarsi è meglio (to trust is good, but not to trust is even better) said the Italian sage Melinda… and how could I not trust him…
Circumspection, what a beautiful word! Juicy and full bodied.. it is indeed one of those words that I consider to be succulent, however, It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent (Macchiavelli).
Have you ever taken sweets from strangers Jane? My mother used to warn me ad nauseam not to take sweets from strangers, and yet I’ve been happily fattened by stranger’s sweets…
Spot on Dave!
I think that every case must be judged on its own merits, circumstance, particularities, and background.
*** On an unrelated note, I also think that advertisements on blogs by intelligent people detract from the overall quality of the blog, but that's just me :-) ***
I agree with you Grey, and that is on both things!
Well, it seems that it's pretty much 4 to 1, and Grey and I are monkey in the middle.
What's a good word for today? How about something totally unrelated, like yume (dream)? I'm about to go to bed, so here's wishing all of you ii (good) yume. Nitey nite.
A long time ago, I was walking down the street during lunch when a very frazzled looking man approached me. He was wearly a suit, had a brief case, looked well kept. He pleaded for help - I don't quite remember the story, but it was something like he was going to an interview and forgot some binder that had his wallet and documents necessary for the interview in it. I'm probably not remembering the story right, but whatever it was, it was fairly convincing. Anyway, all he needed for $10 to take a cab home and retrieve that binder and still make it to the interview in time. He promised to find me at work right after the interview and return it to me.
I'm generally a cynic, and everything in my body told me - this is some sort of a scam, this guy is going to take my money and I'll never see him again. Then I told myself - wouldn't this be a great story if this guy actually returned the money? I'd only be risking $10 for the possible reward of restoring my faith in humanity.
Against all my instincts, I gave the guy $10. He repeated the location of my office a number of times, making sure he remembered it. I went back to work.
He never showed up.
Needless to say, that was my last experiment with something like that.
I was wondering, has anyone had any experiences to the contrary?
Firstly, if you don't look out after yourself then no one else is going to look out for your interests. Anyone wo walks around trusting every person they encounter is doomed to a life of misery and suffering.
I mean really, there is a differnce between being a kind and concerned person and just being stupid. Trusting everyone blindly is just plain stupid.
Melinda, I like how Yume sounds, does it change on the type of dreams? if they are bei sogni (good dreams), or incubi (nightmares) would yume change?
Yelling, I really hope that people don’t go trusting everyone blindly, which, I agree with you, is just plain stupidity.
I agree with Claude.
Not that I believe that people are nice as a rule - a lot of them are just indifferent and some are plain shit - but that just confirms the saying: isn't it more gratifying to find a pearl in a mound of shit than in jewellery shop?...
My be claude and den are right, although I have never heard that saying... and would be grateful to den to let me know where did she found that saying, however, i would go with the good old saying wich is: when you are not ready to swim in the sea, then don't start to swim in a sea of shit...
Those are really nice stories, Claude. Pleasant serendipitous experiences can really change the way you look at planes, trains, and other spaces between life. I've been pretty lucky to have a lot of them, I think.
I remember traveling through Europe by train and having the best converations with people. There were times when everyone in the compartment spoke a differnet language, but there was always someone there to translate for me (you guys know I'm crap with languages) and help me adjust my fare, explain to the immigration officials why I didn't have the proper visa, etc. Good times.
Just a couple of months ago, a guy in Paris helped me do my laundry when he realized I 1) couldn't read French 2) didn't know how to use the machine and 3) didn't have any detergent.
Of course, I've had negative experiences , too, like being mugged at mob-point by a taxi driver in Vietnam (in a word, terrifying, albeit a fuuny story now), but that was the only bad thing that happened to me while I was there. Everyone else was lovely to me.
So, Shaman, the word yume does change, but only for incubi. Then, you'd say akumu (nightmare). Even though the kanji (Chinese character) is just aku (bad) + mu (dream), which is the same as yume, the pronunciation changes. You can pronounce the same kanji up to 7 different ways in Japanese.
Anyway, I'll be back later with a new word for you. Who knows? I may even throw out a sentence!
It reminds me of what my dad always used to say and I embrace it as fully as I'm able.
"Trust everyone, until they give you reason not to."
This has opened doors that I might have otherwise been too afraid to go through. This has gotten me burned as well, but the balance is so far over to the other side...I'm left feeling that it's been worth it. As for me I'm not as smart as my dad, I just say; "I don't think I know...I just know I'm thinking."
your humble servant,
Ancient Clown
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