caution
October 2008 
What does it take for someone to earn your trust?
Posted on Jan 3rd, 2008
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 03, 2008:
This is a funny question, or maybe I don't have this function?
I don't consider this, it isn't part of how I think. I think the only trust that is meaningful is trusting myself.
I know people, and I "trust" them to be who I know them to be, but if I'm wrong, well, that's on me. I do try to pay attention.
I take responsibility for my own choices. I make my own judgment calls. It isn't about anyone meeting my expectations, I don't think. I don't see that I either trust or mistrust, but I do consciously move into the benefit-of-the-doubt camp, because, well, why not?
I don't consider this, it isn't part of how I think. I think the only trust that is meaningful is trusting myself.
I know people, and I "trust" them to be who I know them to be, but if I'm wrong, well, that's on me. I do try to pay attention.
I take responsibility for my own choices. I make my own judgment calls. It isn't about anyone meeting my expectations, I don't think. I don't see that I either trust or mistrust, but I do consciously move into the benefit-of-the-doubt camp, because, well, why not?
Access: Public
Oh, I forgot to say this: the pic is of our new puppy, named Lyra.
I LOVE that your new puppy is called Lyra. I LOVE that pic of your new puppy. I wonder what would happen if your new puppy met the goose that Farland posted a picture of.
I am going to have to try to wrap my mind around this question during my lunchtime walk. Your answer and Farland's answer will have me thinking deeply. I don't know if I can even answer this question, but it will be good food for thought.
Oh– I want to pet that puppy, but I don't think I want to get too close to that goose in Farland's picture. :-)
hurray for daytime! :-)
wait, do you mean you're working during the daytime??? That's awesome.
I read Farland's response and I think we're kind of saying the same thing, kind of in the way of those SAT questions where you have to decide that doorknobs are more like fruit baskets than mosquitoes…
She's a wonderful puppy. Isn't she the perfect picture of considered assessment? She's the most well balanced dog I've ever known.
What a face! I need to see more expresions! How old is she. Can Gnomi and Sticky come over to play? Which one of us is the door knob and which the fruit basket?
yes. I'm now working either 7am to 5pm or noon to 10pm on different days! but the trade off is that daytime work is much, much busier and very little time for my own internet play during work hours. for the next 2 months I'll be training a new dispatcher. this is way more demanding of time than having a new baby, except I DO get to go home after 10 hours.
Farland, yes, Gnomi and Sticky - and you! - are welcome anytime! She's now 3 months old, actually today, the 4th. I'll put more pics in my photos. She has a wonderful face, doesn't she? She's very matter-of-fact and well-balanced.
Dawn, I'm so glad you're working daytime hours now! I know that in your job someone has to work nights, but when I heard that news release about how unhealthy it is, I was secretly hoping your hours would change. Maybe I wished hard enough?
you are so sweet. I'm coming with farland when she brings the doggies to visit you.
my schedule changes, monthly. I'm on the schedule for 2100-0700 again in September. it's usually about 3 months per year. days are hard, at this job, for different reasons. it's my community service. I wouldn't still be doing this job, probably, if I hadn't discovered yoga and if I didn't have such wonderful friends and family that support me so much. ;-)
I like your answer, too. It was a weird question, I think, because we aren't given specific circumstances in which we would be asked to trust someone. Trust them to catch us if we jump out the window? Trust them not to reveal explosive information about us at a big party? Trust random, unknown people not to enter my apartment and take stuff if I leave it unlocked? How much is at stake? If we just throw the issue of trust open to the wind, I would say I err on the side of trusting life in general. I remember when I was traveling across the country I met a woman by chance who found out I was traveling alone and asked me whether I had my gun with me. I was shocked at her straightforward assumption that a woman needs a gun when traveling alone, but the comment revealed a lot. It occurred to me that having a weapon would make me more afraid, not less.
Lyra's photo looks almost surreal, her eyes astoundingly…riveting. I swear, she's talkin' to me! And doorknobs are more like fruit baskets than mosquitoes? Damn! That's why I only got into UofR and not Cornell. Sheesh. A life asunder because of one question misanswered!
Switching shifts is so unhealthy. I remember doing trickwork (the factory kind) for 6 years - it sucked. My 96 hour straight workweeks at school are actually easier. Dawn - I'm glad you're back on days if even only for a while.
Dawn and Albert - I did nights for a while when I worked in labor and delivery - I was the newest person, so I had to fiip-flop, 12 hour shifts, sometimes back and forth 3 times in one week. It was obvious that it wasn't a healthy choice, but I liked the job and I liked 12 hour shifts - I got paid for 40 hours but only had to work 36 and I had more days off than on. But really, none of that made up for how draining it was to try to flex back and forth that way.
Regina - one of the examples of what gets labeled as “trust” that I come back to in my head is theatre. Take Cirque du Soleil as an extreme example - yes, everyone “trusts” that each will do their part perfectly, that if they jump out the window they'll be caught, but it's a product of incessant, exacting, precise practice and an awareness of how every part of a performance fits together. Which means it's a very calculated assessment and one that hinges on personal responsibility and on predictability. It just looks like trust because we think about how scary it would be to do those things if it was us. I think everything is that way, there's fear and then there's adequate information.
For some people, I guess maybe the practice is figuring out that guns don't facilitate travel???
And Albert? Lyra is talking to you, she just has a little difficulty wrapping her mouth around the words!
Zozo just looked at Lyra's picture as I was reading your comment. He looked back at me and said: “Photoshop?” I said “Naw, just a Dali doggy.” He purred a bit, yawned, and hopped off the desk to get something to eat.
oh my goodness. I can't say why right now, specifically, but i LOVE this whole conversation/blog. maybe it's “guns don't facilitate travel” and a cat named zozo talking about photoshop. and – it feels like “real” friendship all around. yo quiero a todos por cenar! I think I just said “I want you all for dinner”, but I mean i want to have you all over for dinner. haha. :-)
trying to get to bed early, when it's now time to be up early in the day, is one of the hardest parts of flipping schedules. My body still wants to sleep all day. I'm like a flickering lamp– I want to sleep all day, not get up, then I'm up and then at bed, especially after these adrenaline filled, busy, busy dispatch days– I'm not sleepy at bedtime.
I'm headed to bed now to read– “the subtle knife” again. main character, Lyra, the little girl and her friends the witch and the balloon flying texan and the caffienated physicist are some of my favorite winter bedtime companions.
I'll look for you all at sunday morningtime.
Oh, Dawn, yes about dinner! And if ever any of you are passing near the mountains of north carolina, email me and I'll give you my address and phone number and directions and I'll make lots of food for us! Except for Albert, who lives near here anyway, knows how to get to my house and promised to cook for us the next time - and still hasn't met Lyra. (If you don't hurry up she'll be a grown dog!)
Lyra was named for the character in those books - she came to our house the weekend the Golden Compass movie was released.
And oh, Dawn, I forgot this part:
I used to work with a nurse in oncology at a big medical center with a lot of Spanish-speaking patients, and she didn't really speak spanish but there was a cheat sheet and she always got everything wrong.
Instead of asking patients if they were having any difficulty breathing, she would walk into the room and ask if they were breathing. And she would ask them for money instead of asking if they were in pain.
You wouldn't necessarily think that would be funny in that setting, but it was.
The anesthesiologists had a cheat sheet that included the phrase “I don't actually speak spanish, i am just reading from a piece of paper.”
it's almost noon. I stayed in bed til I finished rereading “the subtle knife”. lyra is missing until I pick up the amber spyglass to reread it. I'm drinking some green tea with the yummiest honey I have ever tasted and a touch of organic cow's milk in it.
yesterday, on my break from work, I went to the library and got a pile of travel books– on norway, scandinavia overall, and mexico's baja as well as a cassette tape/book set called “teach yourself norwegian”. I listened to my coffee break spanish lessons on the bus on the way to work yesterday, but didn't choose to try repeating the phrases out loud in the crowded bus. a friend sat down next to me on the bus and asked about the magazine I was holding– iceland review. we talked about my upcoming trip to norway in may, with a 48 hour stop in reykjavik, iceland. my head is in the clouds again and in the far north and way over southwest, not here now really at all, but I'm quite happy with it that way. it's snowing again here. snowing and snowing and snowing. the dogs won't go outside to play, they are curled up on the couch. I don't want to go out either. I'm hibernating and either dreaming or daydreaming or reading or online talking to some far away in the another part of the world person.
as I type I have put in the tape from the teach yourself norwegian set and am only giving it my half attention. the tape is warped and stretched and sounds very strange. it's hillarious. I had better not try to use this brand of norwegian on any real norwegians, let alone patients any time soon. i'm going to go search for an updated version of this set. maybe I can get it at least on cd. :-)
I'm cracking up at your story. I'm hoping it made the patients laugh too. good medicine. :-) I'm sure you've seen the patch adams movie?
and yes! if you are ever, ever near colorado– email me and I'll send you all my info and even if you want to make a trip to come specifically here to visit– we have a sort of guest room. it's small, but can be cozy.
I brought up the picture of Lyra again. Sure enough Zozo launched himself from somewhere across the room and landed in front of the monitor. I used the little mouse wheel and bounced Lyra up and down. Zozo kept pawing at the bouncing picture, trying to get Lyra to come out and play. After a while he gave up and, wordlessly, curled up on my lap for a nap.
Maybe if I cook Jeannie and Krissy something really really good they'll make the Burning Man trip with me this year and we can all stop for a breather in Colorado.
On my first trip to Germany I was damned if I wasn't going to put all those college German lessons to good use. I went into a restaurant in Oberammergau and ordered dinner. The waiter questioned (in German) my selection asking, I assumed, if that was what I really wanted. I responded “Ja, ja.” A little while later he brought out two complete dinners - enough food for a small party. I wasn't gonna admit defeat so I ate it all - and could barely get up from the table afterward. Maybe I should have had a cheat sheet that said “I don't actually speak German, I'm just pretending to.”
Okay, Zozo is still napping on my lap. Maybe he'll wake up if I bounce Lyra's picture some more…
I am so cracking up right now! yes, stop in colorado on your way to burning man. when is burning man???
Burning Man is in August, this year Aug 25 - Sep 1.
We should all go!
Our big dilemma is how to find a zoo keeper…
Wow you are fast…I just went to get the link and whammo!
Can't a zookeeper be rented from U-Haul? Or better yet rent a menagerie-transport-device and head for the hills…errr…desert.
I'm the zoo keeper! Drop them all off in Utah with me. I don't want to go to Burning Man (too many people for me all at once). Sticky and Gnomi will host a Burning Dog event just no cats but they can be left on their own.
I am very serious about the zoo keeping.
I'm a little afraid that the dogs would have a better time than I would and then there would be dog-envy…
Burning Dog sounds like a great event.
Oh you're in on my secret! And your dogs are so lucky too with that dog diet, yum!
Some days I think the furbies eat better than we do.
Dawn? I think we should all learn Norwegian from the stretchy-crazy tape. We should all speak it just the same way, with long drawn out sounds and maybe a few strategic hiccups. It can be our own dialect.
Burning Dog! Rats, why didn't I think of that? Giant neon/electrical sculpture of fire hydrants, hirsute nakedness run amuck in the sand, properly scented counterfeit carrion in which to joyfully roll, lolling tongues, everywhere lolling tongues and wagging tails. <thump, thump, thump> Oh, sorry - that was just me!
Dog-envy sucks. I've got it bad. I mean, like some people have 2, 3, even 4 dogs, and I don't have any! Size (of pack) does matter.
Mark your calendar everybody.
And Dawn - that's hilarious about the stretchy tape. That would be really wild with a language like Mandarin where intonation is so critical to meaning. God that would be funny.
oh geez. I got behind. I was mopping the floor and scrubbing the toilet and you guys were making travel plans without me. :-)
I don't know if I want to go to burning man —maybe. but I do want you guys to stop and visit here on your way and on your way back, so I can here your stories.
and farland will make the perfect, perfect zookeeper. you won't want to leave though, once you see her place in utah. you might not actually get to burning man. it's too lovely at farland's place. and I haven't even been there since the wee structures went up.
my calendar is marked. I don't think I have any conflicts, but I might be out of vacation time by the. :-)
now I'm listening to norwegian internet radio. I keep getting grouchy because all the lyrics are in english. I was listening to classical before my husband got home, but he put it on the pop/hip hop station. the in between songs talk is still in norwegian, but the songs are the same annoying yuck that they play on the pop/hip hop stations here. (we do not agree about music in this household very often). I am a little sad about the homogenization of this modern life.
I think Lynette has some you tube links to some good contemporary real Norwegian music. Ask her!
I will!! thanks!
and – I can't find out how to say “please” in norwegian. it seems to depend on what you are asking for. I don't think there is a direct translation. ummm….. remember when we asked that in iceland. isn't that what solveig told us about icelandic too? no real direct translation for please because icelanders don't think like that….. I think icelandic and norwegian are similar.
I'll ask marianne in our next exchange though.
thank you is the same in norwegian as icelandic….. takk.
homogenization sucks. It's why I have mall-aversion - every person everywhere shopping at the same stores, buying the same things, eek.
Plus the malls always smell funny.
Who is Lynette?
They don't say please. I remember that Maria had to learn in US how to be “polite” with those words like please and thank you etc. There are many languages where that denotes some class distinction ( subservience) and so not used. Interesting.
Lynette is one of my great mentor friends also on Zaadz and more on my space and the best artist I have ever known. She works for the local radio station and has developed connections all over the world with great independent musicians and she lives in a beautiful straw bale home and raises chickens but mostly feeds the local fox population with them off purpose of course. Let me find her web site here
Malls smell that way because they spray cans of “mall scent” all over the place which they get from the people who brought you “new car scent” spray.
And I was gonna say that Lynette is the travel size version of Lyn but I must have been thinking of the wrong Lynette.
Farland, Lynette's artwork is really beautiful! Thanks for the link.
hahaha i love the way you free flow how you're thinking…captures the process wonderfully