The Trust

You lazily asked me if I trusted you, "Of course I do" I replied. After all what I am supposed to say? The 'real' truth about how I trust? I doubt you would take kindly to that, few people have over the years, and besides I am (still) trying to be a better person. Part of that attempt is to change the way I 'trust' people. I fear that I may be failing at that attempt. I blame society, and predicatibility. 

As you may have noticed if you read any of this blog, I am a card carrying, people hating, misanthrope. I deal with a lot of people on a daily basis that reinforce my dislike of the human race, and it is something that helps define me. The sad part of this tale is the fact that I DO trust people, but it is a negative trust. A trust built upon years of (bad) experience(s), and a mean streak a mile wide. I trust people to betray me. It will happen, despite all their protests to the contrary, they will betray me. And, truth be told, I will probably betray them. Life is sort of a race to see who betrays whom first. Eventually, myself or my 'friends' will be faced with the classical 'me or him/her' dilemma, and if they or me have any sense whatsoever, the choice will be me (i.e. the person faced with the dilemma). It is human nature, and it is natural, to pick me over them it is hard wired into my DNA. I am sorry, I know it makes me a bad person, and all that, but I am the only person that I am certain I can trust in a positive sense. Even then I sometimes wonder if I am not my own worst enemy, but until I push my own self under the bus, I have to hope that I, mostly, act in my own best interests, depsite quite a large amount of evidence to the contrary. 

And no matter how long we've known each other, in any sense, and no matter how much we 'love' each other, or how well we get along, or if I am the benevolent "uncle" to your children, our interests are not identical. At some point the you or me situation will come up, and I, maybe with regret, maybe not, will be forced to choose me. It makes me a bad person, but it ensures that I will at least remain a person.  I expect you to do the same. The knife that will be buried hilt deep in my, or your back, will have a name on it. The name might cause you or me sadness, but at the end of the day, knives kill. That just what they do, the name on the blade isn't going to make dying any easier or more difficult.

That knife, if it carries a familar name, will be a farewell present between us. A sort of lethal 'have a nice life' parting gift for a contestant that just was unable to survive the 'showcase showdown' that is life. It will sever ties (and if well placed, other things) between us, and until I, or you remove it, will be a constant reminder that negative trust can sometimes be the best kind of trust. After all we expected this didn't we? We discussed it on the front end, and agreed (maybe over a couple too many beers) that the kind of trust we share is negative, and that eventually (hopefully not for a long time, but still eventually) one of us will not survive to continue the relationship between us. It will be sad, funny, tragic, and fatal all at the same time but, it will happen as sure as the sun rises in the east, it is one thing that, even though I'm not supposed to, I will bet on with a sad certainty.

P.S.  The picture above is of the actor Sam Neill playing Sidney Reilly in "Reilly: Ace of Spies" a lovely PBS mini series from a zillion years ago. The point of the picture, other than Mr. Neill is one handsome fellow, is this. Sidney Reilly was a master spy, a man at home in the house of deceit, lies, and betrayal. Yet, his downfall was to be lured back to Russia to support an alleged anti-Bolshievk group that was to try to overthrow V.I. Lenin. It wasn't a real group it was a group set up by the NKVD to lure Reilly and others to Russia in order to have them killed. Its name, well it was, ever so aptly, called "The Trust."