Trust
Billy was the first one to actively offer me a teaching about receiving, roundabout 2003. He would often give me stuff, like artwork, or old style clothes made from quality materials by craftspeople. I’d often say no. I thought I was being a proud working class by doing so, trying to not be a sponge. This may have been true, but the main thing I was doing by refusing his gifts was not participating in the give and take that is one of the vital components of a good life and a good friendship.
It was only after he’d offered things on the regular and I’d always made a fuss of refusing them that Billy had cut the flow of spirited words, lowered his voice and, looking kindly at me, said, ‘Dave, you’ve got to learn to receive gifts.’ The lesson has taken years to sink in.
Traditional knowledge advises us that we should be aware that we eat at the banquet of life knowing that part of the deal is that one day we will ourselves be the meal. You take, you give. It's what it’s all about.
Traditional knowledge advises us that we should be aware that we eat at the banquet of life knowing that part of the deal is that one day we will ourselves be the meal. You take, you give. It's what it’s all about.
Sometimes you can give back to those who’ve given to you, sometimes you can’t and instead you give to others. I’d heard of ‘give and take’ often whilst growing up, but it was always wrapped in talk of marriage, peacemaking, and compromise. You’d have to put up with behaviour you didn’t agree with in order to get what you wanted, they said. I don’t recall ever hearing the process described as joyful, which is how I see it now. Perhaps if it had been, I’d have paid more notice, and would therefore have been in a better position to be a decent friend.
These days I try to do everything with the give and take in mind. I feed the birds, they offer me joy. I speak to my herb garden and they also offer me joy as well as food. And on the rare occasion I speak to a human in real life I understand that we’re offering each other our time, our individual wisdoms, our understanding and our trust.
Recently I was thinking back to the time I walked across the Sinai Desert. Of the 3 or 4 people I’d met during the 2 weeks it’d taken me to cross what is known as the ‘great and terrible wilderness'. I thought of how those I’d met had given me kindness, and it occurred to me that I had also offered them something. An opportunity to be kind; and my trust.
Since I’ve become an immigrant I’ve tried often to volunteer for charities in my new country but have always been turned down. Because of this I’ve learnt what a gift it is to be able to offer kindness.
And trust. It seems like every shop I walk into has signs saying ‘Smile, you’re on camera’. What they’re saying is ‘We don’t trust you.’ Mini aggressions like this are constant. What does this do to us? And who does it really serve, when many of us feel this way?
By hiking alone across the Sinai, I was saying to any human, ‘Here I am. I’ve no gun, knife, phone, or other means of protection. You can rob me, do what you want with me, but I trust that you won’t.’ And I was saying to the world in general, ‘I’m carrying only enough water for 2 days. I’m trusting I will find some more. I have no map, I’m trusting the way will present itself if I put the work in.’
These days I try to do everything with the give and take in mind. I feed the birds, they offer me joy. I speak to my herb garden and they also offer me joy as well as food. And on the rare occasion I speak to a human in real life I understand that we’re offering each other our time, our individual wisdoms, our understanding and our trust.
Recently I was thinking back to the time I walked across the Sinai Desert. Of the 3 or 4 people I’d met during the 2 weeks it’d taken me to cross what is known as the ‘great and terrible wilderness'. I thought of how those I’d met had given me kindness, and it occurred to me that I had also offered them something. An opportunity to be kind; and my trust.
Since I’ve become an immigrant I’ve tried often to volunteer for charities in my new country but have always been turned down. Because of this I’ve learnt what a gift it is to be able to offer kindness.
And trust. It seems like every shop I walk into has signs saying ‘Smile, you’re on camera’. What they’re saying is ‘We don’t trust you.’ Mini aggressions like this are constant. What does this do to us? And who does it really serve, when many of us feel this way?
By hiking alone across the Sinai, I was saying to any human, ‘Here I am. I’ve no gun, knife, phone, or other means of protection. You can rob me, do what you want with me, but I trust that you won’t.’ And I was saying to the world in general, ‘I’m carrying only enough water for 2 days. I’m trusting I will find some more. I have no map, I’m trusting the way will present itself if I put the work in.’
To be clear, I didn't know I was doing those things. Yet I was doing them all the same.
The Biblical phrase, ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ is well known. However, the Sufi’s say that this is a mistranslation. It should be, ‘Do unto yourself as you do unto others.’ The difference in words is small, yet the Biblical version assumes that you’re acting out of self interest, whereas the Sufi phrase assumes that you’re already a good person, and treating people well, and you just need a reminder to treat yourself as well as you already do others.
The Sufi’s do that, they turn ideas on their heads so you can get a different perspective.
I thought of all this and that maybe I could use that Sinai journey and Billy’s lesson to do something helpful.
I made a PDF book of all the photos taken during the Historical Hillwalkers project, that Billy and I did around 2007. For admirers of Billy, it’s a nice document. I offered it for download on my website. The page was set out with a donate button, then a download button, and a note that explained that people could donate what they wanted - the price of a coffee would be fine - and then they could download.
I made it clear I'd like people to pay, but they were also able just to skip the donate part, if they wanted. There were no electronic restrictions in place, if they wanted to take the document for free, they could.
In effect, I was offering trust. I trusted people to pay for the book, but if they chose to just take it, they could. Nobody would know.
About 25% of downloads were paid for. This made me very happy! People had a clear choice, they could take the book for free against my wishes and nobody would know, yet a quarter had chosen to pay. I scaled it up and thought, wow, a quarter of people outside, in my town, in my world, are very honest. Isn’t that fantastic. Just think of what good stuff we could do if a quarter of the world's population decided that we were all going to act on our honest natures and treat each other decently. We'd maybe say goodbye to the economists and others who use numbers to create many forms of unnatural unrest, such as starvation when there's lot of food around, for a start.
The Biblical phrase, ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ is well known. However, the Sufi’s say that this is a mistranslation. It should be, ‘Do unto yourself as you do unto others.’ The difference in words is small, yet the Biblical version assumes that you’re acting out of self interest, whereas the Sufi phrase assumes that you’re already a good person, and treating people well, and you just need a reminder to treat yourself as well as you already do others.
The Sufi’s do that, they turn ideas on their heads so you can get a different perspective.
I thought of all this and that maybe I could use that Sinai journey and Billy’s lesson to do something helpful.
I made a PDF book of all the photos taken during the Historical Hillwalkers project, that Billy and I did around 2007. For admirers of Billy, it’s a nice document. I offered it for download on my website. The page was set out with a donate button, then a download button, and a note that explained that people could donate what they wanted - the price of a coffee would be fine - and then they could download.
I made it clear I'd like people to pay, but they were also able just to skip the donate part, if they wanted. There were no electronic restrictions in place, if they wanted to take the document for free, they could.
In effect, I was offering trust. I trusted people to pay for the book, but if they chose to just take it, they could. Nobody would know.
About 25% of downloads were paid for. This made me very happy! People had a clear choice, they could take the book for free against my wishes and nobody would know, yet a quarter had chosen to pay. I scaled it up and thought, wow, a quarter of people outside, in my town, in my world, are very honest. Isn’t that fantastic. Just think of what good stuff we could do if a quarter of the world's population decided that we were all going to act on our honest natures and treat each other decently. We'd maybe say goodbye to the economists and others who use numbers to create many forms of unnatural unrest, such as starvation when there's lot of food around, for a start.
Thankyou to the honest quarter! And to the others, for most likely, a substantial number of those who didn’t pay felt bad about their actions. They may have been broke, or so jaded by not being trusted in general that they didn’t quite know how to react when they were. Maybe if they were trusted again, they’d reflect on how bad they felt when they broke trust before, and resolve to do things differently this time around. I believe that to be so.
The PDF book felt like the completion of something. Billy had made me aware of the importance of giving and taking, and now I had offered up something made from one of our projects. And I was treating myself well in doing so. It feels good to give. A PDF is not much but it's something I can do. I'm going to start work on another one today.
The PDF book felt like the completion of something. Billy had made me aware of the importance of giving and taking, and now I had offered up something made from one of our projects. And I was treating myself well in doing so. It feels good to give. A PDF is not much but it's something I can do. I'm going to start work on another one today.
I know this is just words, and anybody can use words and concepts to argue for anything at all. You could, if you wished, say that what you've read here is either a/ self promotion b/ beautiful c/ nonsense 4/ whatever, etc
I'm probably not smart enough to see myself around that. A thought that occupies my mind these days though, is, what do I want my creativity to achieve, apart from personal contentment. One current theory of mine is, I want to use it to draw attention to what I think matters, which entails using it to learn what 'what matters' is, and then trying to stay focused on doing it, ad infinitum.
If you'd like to get the PDF, you can find the original page, and download, HERE
