TRUST, TRUST, TRUST…
I’ve been brooding on this word and its grand meaning ever since I set foot in Argentina, perhaps even longer.
According to Wikipedia, Trust is a personal prediction of reliance, in something… The degree to which one person trusts another as a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other person.
Trust is a moral value most of us consider a virtue. We place our Trust in people and things with the hope our trust will not be betrayed. Each day we prove and test our notions of trustworthiness through our responsibilities and expectations.
So where is this virtuous gibberish leading?
Well… the South American journey is over now; it ended last Saturday with all the grace and meaning of a fixed card game that promised a million dollar pot but turned out to be untrue.
There was a weird, painful stench of dissapointment that followed me around on this journey. A dark and personalized stench that I didn’t recognize in the beginning when I wrote in the Authors Note, “ This trip might be so confusing and unpredictable that even I might not know what is happening. But what the Hell? Life is full of those moments. Right? Right!”
Indeed. In hindsight, it was an ugly thing to write. Now, it is a monument to everything I experienced and encountered over the last few months in this strange world we have built for ourselves in the name of words like “democracy, progress, equality, justice, mercy” and on a personal level “love, truth and trust.”
There were good times on this journey, don’t get me wrong. Many majestic places visited, friendships made, laughs shared and love found and lost in the sunset. But the darker, mostly ignored, side of society got the best of those good feelings…
Take the the homeless Bolivian man I watched hustling in an upscale Mendoza neighbourhood for pesos to feed his wife and three young children, only to be turned down again-and-again by rich folk in shiny $100k cars. And when he finally had enough pesos – saved-up from his nightly routine of reserving parking spots in front of an up-scale restaurant – he took that money and dissapeared into a nearby store coming out a few minutes later with a bottle of Coca-Cola for his family. Yes sir, folks… that was the family dinner for that night.
In retrospect I think that moment was the beginning of the end of my stay in Argentina.
My thoughts brought me back to the word Trust and what this man’s relationship was with that foul word. Who did he have to confide such a word in? The government? The church? The rich folk who sneered at him nighlty? Does he expect them to understand? No. But for his wife and kids it was obvious. He was thier meaning of the word Trust. Trust was his responsibility.
For most people in Argentina, and the world, (myself included) there is a deep and largly unrecognized need to overcome, at all cost, what ever it might be that oppresses us. Fair enough, we all have our own cause and meaning by which we live. But in today’s world it has become ever-more present that in our grapling to reach the so-called summit, we are leaving a path of destruction and broken promises.
On any given morning, in any given city, both the rich and the poor can be sure that by the noon-time the inescapable realities of their calling will have forced them to do something they would rather not have to explain, not even to themselves. The details will vary, but the essential need never changes. “ We don’t have a choice,” I heard both rich and poor say. “Society has made me what I am.”
This is a sad fact of living in any South American or 2nd , 3rd or developing country for any length of time, and some of my readers might agree, that these places have a tendency to twist the idealism and faith of Westeners who have been living far too comfortable lives in their own countries.
The simple,dumb truth is that as a Westener – armed with puritan pragmatism learned in universities and discussed in coffee shops – you realize very qucikly that you are in a country with different traditions and a different outlook on life.
It is an odd feeling being back in Toronto and reading the Star and Globe about World events. The problems, the issues and solutions suddenly become quite clear from the comfort of my home. Ha Ha Ha don’t they?
Looking back on the Homeless Man Hustle for survival in Mendoza, it is easy to see him as a beggar and cockroach of society. I recall how normal it was at the time for passersby and rich folk to sneer at him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a group of rich-folk decided to surround him and step on him like a cockroach as his family watched… I wouldn’t have been surprised at all…
After all, society has made us what we are… Trust in that.
Mucho Gracias to all who read my ramblings and emails of concern over the state of my emotional well-being... Mucho Gracias...
For those of you wondering…I never went against the conventional wisdom that preaches not to give money to beggars. The homeless Bolivian man never asked me for a peso. But I saw myself in this man, his position in society, his desperation, his will, his faith in goodness, his need for compassion, empathy, simply….a Lousy Fucking break… So I offered him and his family a meal at the restaurant he hustled in front of each night. It wasn’t a solution, but for one night in this family’s life they could rest assure their faith in the word Trust.
