Talk To Strangers

The Family Matters theme song opens with the line “it’s a rare condition, in this day and age, to read any good news, on the newspaper page.”  Of course, it’s probably been rare to see good news in newspapers in any age, but that doesn’t make the song any less apropos for our time.  More specifically however, I’m always surprised to see “news” that exists seemingly for the sole purpose of making people afraid of some commonplace thing.  For example, I remember when my mom stopped letting us eat raw cookie dough because she read that the raw eggs could give us salmonella.  A lot of the news I read online seems to work in similar ways.  It makes us afraid of common foods, different people, normal behavior, and global pandemics (really, just look at the “Crime” or “Health sections on any news site for numerous examples).  None of this news is fabricated; instead it finds a real problem and suggests that it might be a real big problem.  (Jon recently discussed hitchhiking and how people become afraid of people, among other interesting points.)

 

While all these threats may be very important, the result of all this fear mongering “news” simply seems to be less trust.  People suddenly have to avoid activities they enjoy and, even more disheartening, they avoid new people because those people may be drug addicts, "gang bangers," or mass murderers.  As a result communities shrink and interactions become laced with suspicion.  The pattern of fear is perpetuated as parents remove their children from social situations because they can’t trust other adults not to molest their kids.

 

I see this as a real problem, so maybe I’m guilty of doing the very thing I’m condemning by describing a situation and then raising alarm over it.  The difference, I hope, is that there is a simple and rather pleasant solution to this problem: choose to trust.  I think it’s possible to choose to believe that every person out there is actually a great person.  It’s possible to assume that public places won’t make us sick.  It’s possible to assume that every child who goes over to a friend’s house or gets on the internet won’t fall victim to a sexual predator.

 

In some circles, choosing to trust is already common.  One example that comes to mind is couch surfing, which involves allowing total strangers into your home while they’re traveling.  Depending on how it’s done the participants may know more or less about each other beforehand, but ultimately it requires that people simply believe that they won’t hurt each other.  And in the end, they usually don’t.  I experienced a similar situation recently when a band from Las Vegas offered to let my band stay at their house on an up coming trip.  They didn’t know us and we very easily could be the kind of people who would rob them blind (or worse).  Still, they chose to believe that that wouldn’t happen and the result was that we’ve all made new friends.  

In the end, these examples can’t solve the world’s problems, but they do lead me to believe that fear and suspicion are choices that can be avoided.  I also know that if everyone chose to trust everyone else all the time, there would be causalities.  Someone would end up trusting the murderer or the sexual predator.  Still, fear doesn't seem to provide much protection now, and, more importantly, the trade off is worth it.  If we try to trust more we'll be happier and have more fulfilling experiences.