Filter Coffee #209

On Faith & Trust

From Atlanta GA

The response to FC 207 on Good Day, Bad Day made me feel good. A comment that I wish to share:

• Tarun Kunzru: “There are sad and happy incidents in life. Time makes you deal with them wonderfully. The one that tends to linger is gross injustice. The logic system kicks in, and pushback begins. The challenge here is to not let it overwhelm your life. It's easier to deal with if no emotion or ego is involved. The key to this is not to worry too much if it's outside your control!”

FC 208 which was a travelogue by Ashvini Ranjan on his sojourn to Uzbekistan, was much appreciated. 

• Prof Shashi Mohanty from Orissa summed it up: “What a travelogue! I felt as if I was there. This place is on my bucket list. The visuals complement the words. Are you a photographer? Astounded by the image quality. Travel Photography is my passion.”

• Krupa, Niharika, Lakshmi Raman, and Doraiswmy felt as if they were on a guided tour of Uzbekistan: “You have virtually taken us through the lanes and by lanes of Uzbekistan!! The descriptions are crisp. It made a very interesting read!”

🤝Faith & Trust

Faith, belief and trust appear synonymous at first blush. But the reality is that each represents an emotion. You could use all of them in one sentence. For instance, you are a non-swimmer, sitting with a friend in a kayak with trepidation. You could be heard telling him, “I have faith in your rowing abilities, I believe you when you say I have nothing to worry about and I trust you to take me back ashore”

This post is not about the grammatical distinction among these three human leanings. It is about how each one of them plays out in our daily lives. All of us rely on one of these three emotions. I call them ‘emotions’ not because I don’t have another word for them collectively, but because I do believe that emotion is at the core of each one of them.

Beliefs are our convictions about what we consider or accept as true. It is a strong feeling that something or someone is worthy of being regarded as good or true. One’s beliefs may be considered conservative if they involve something that one adheres to unquestioningly, like traditions and family values. You might be considered liberal if you believe that everyone is entitled to their beliefs.

Faith is far more emotion-driven than trust & belief. You have faith in God, though you may not have experienced divine presence. You place your faith in someone to live up to your expectations. Does this mean faith is reposed even when there is no evidence that it will be respected? It seems so because reposing faith is a unilateral action and not based on experience. You may say I have faith in the judiciary, but it is more an aspirational statement than an empirical one.

Good faith and bad faith are ways men can conduct themselves. Not conducting in good faith is not as damaging as acting in bad faith. If I repose faith in a friend to keep certain matters in confidence, he may actively share it with someone in bad faith or make no good faith efforts to preserve that confidence reposed in him. Why do we then repose faith in others, not knowing if it was misplaced to start with? Is it a leap of faith?

‘Leap of faith’ is essentially a kind of blind belief. You invest in an opportunity without having any assurance or evidence that it will work. The decision you take is almost irreversible. If that leap of faith yields favourable results, you can leap with joy. If it does not, then you may still leap at the next available opportunity. This is typically seen in the relationship between a start-up and an angel investor. I recommend for your leisure reading FC 42 on ‘Leap of Faith’ which I wrote in April 2021, when Covid kept us indoors. 🔗Here’s the link. 

Imagine a situation where you have to undergo a procedure. You go to your family doctor and get his opinion on which hospital you should go to and which doctor should be doing that procedure. The hospital and the specialist recommended by your family doctor are based on his professional evaluation, and that would be adequate evidence for you to repose faith in your family doctor’s recommendation. When you go in for the procedure, you trust the doctor to live up to that faith.

The position is somewhat complicated if you have to admit a relative for a procedure. If you have experience, you may rely on it or check with some doctor known to you and decide. But the relative will be reposing faith in you and your decision. When the actual procedure gets underway, neither you nor your relative will repose trust in the doctor but have faith in his ability to carry out the procedure.

As you may appreciate, trust is founded on previous evidence or based on past interactions or known facts. Faith, in contrast, leans more towards a conviction that is not necessarily based on historical proof or direct experience. The trust may consolidate incrementally or may get eroded over time. In contrast, faith, as in divine power, can remain constant regardless of external circumstances, often held as an unshakable belief. The fact that I prayed for something which was not granted may not deter me from continuing to repose faith in that divine power. That faith is an emotional crutch for most people.

Faith may often be reposed irrationally. Just a gut instinct that things will not go wrong is enough to repose faith in someone. Trust is predicated on rationality. There’s an element of reasoning and logical conclusion behind an act of trust. Trust may lead to entrustment, which can be a tangible or intangible matter. You share some confidential data with a conviction that the person to whom you entrusted the data is trustworthy. A person in a fiduciary position is presumed to be trustworthy. If you have a person dealing with cash for years, you have no reason to suspect that he would commit a breach of trust. A long-term domestic help or personal driver is so trusted over time that when they do something to undermine that trust, you feel let down.

I know of an incident where a person handling cash was persuaded by a friend to lend him some of that cash with the assurance that it would be returned before the weekend account settlement happened but failed to return the cash. There is no misappropriation of the cash but misapplication, and yet the person forfeits the trust bestowed in him. It is said that trust is like milk. It has to be kept whole all the time.

One might repose faith in a person based on an assumption that he will live up to your expectations. But trust is reposed, not based on assumption, but on past experience. There’s an element of rationality and reasoning in trust.  If a person were to approach you for some financial help, would you extend that help trusting him, reposing faith in him, or just hoping that he would repay? What if a person told you a sob story and extracted from you money that you will never get back? Would you give because the story resonates with your compassion, or you repose faith in him and expect him to return the money? If founded on compassion, you are better off writing that money off.

When we trust someone, we have confidence in them and in their honesty and integrity. We believe that they will do the things they say they will, and recognize their abilities and strengths.

Of course, there will be bad consequences if the assumption is false or the trust is misplaced.

If I take a long-haul flight, I repose trust in the airline’s track record and the ability of the pilots it hires. I am unlikely to travel with the mere faith of getting to my destination. So would I when I take a boat ride. I’m not a swimmer and if I take the boat I repose faith in the oarsman to bring me back to the shore. Contrast this with a cruise liner. I would take that with nearly impeccable trust. 

Conmen are known for their ability to evoke trust in you. They are such good artists that you are taken in by what they say and end up doing what they want you to do, I wrote a piece on this way back in October 2022. Please use 🔗this link and read at your leisure: 

I trust you if you said you enjoyed reading this post. Thank you. Trust me to come up with a few jokes to end this note:

• Never trust a plastic surgeon. He has no skin in the game,

• Never trust an acupuncturist. He says he will cure you and then stab you.

• Never trust a dermatologist. He makes rash decisions.

• Never trust a real estate developer. He is always plotting and scheming.

• Never trust Velcro. It’s a rip-off.

• A spider got sick from eating a fly he trapped...
  His mother told him not to trust everything he finds on the web

This one is on me: What’s the difference between a lawyer & a buffalo? The lawyer charges more.

Dear readers, thank you for your patronage. Until next week, take care and you will be safe. Trust me :)
Ciao.