I was up on a ladder this morning moving my cable connection off of the new garage I'm having built, and it got me to thinking about trust. Being able to trust the people and things around you is a crucial part of being a person - going through life with the inability to trust anyone would be unbearably difficult, and I suspect would induce various types of psychosis. So, it's inevitable throughout the course of your life that you will place your trust in a person or object and it will fail you.
Fortunately, this morning my ladder did not fail me (despite the fact that I was bundled up against the 15 degree weather and the ladder was resting on some icy snow), but every now and then someone or something that you expect to behave one way switches up on you, and you are thrown for a loop. For example, on Christmas Day my brother helped me move my Suzuki from the shed in my driveway to my dad's garage, where it would be more protected against the elements this winter. Halfway between my house and my dad's the throttle got stuck open, the end result of which was that the bike took off up a windy, hilly road (with snow-covered edges) at a very high rate of speed, and engaging the clutch or rolling off the throttle had no effect. Fortunately, my training kicked in and I flipped the kill switch and coasted to the side of the road. The whole thing happened so quickly I never had time to be terrified.
The bike had let me down. Here was a performance machine, the first I had ever ridden, touted to be one of the best and most elite machines Japan has to offer, and it flat out betrayed me. This bike had taught me everything I knew about driving very fast on two wheels, and suddenly it was behaving like a lesser machine. It did something I never expected it to do - it went back on its promise to always be there for me, to always act in my best interest, to always have my back, and it did something to endanger that which I hold so dear to me.
My first instinct was to question myself. Was it possible that this thing that I loved and respected and trusted really do this to me? Maybe I didn't let it warm up enough. Maybe I rolled the throttle on instead of off. Did I cross a wire in my head and forget which hand was the throttle and which was the clutch?
Looking back on it, I can't see anything that I did wrong. The bottom line is that the bike gave me reason to never trust it again, at least not completely. It reminded me of the cardinal rule that must always be followed whenever you strap on a crotch rocket , and that is to never assume that everything is going to go the way you might expect. Don't assume that the guy in the right lane in the highway isn't suddenly going to drop his coffee on his lap and veer across the blacktop into your lane. Don't forget that at any moment a deer could bound across your path. And never expect your vehicle to be infallible - it was made by humans after all, and therefore is bound to exhibit some of the defects to inherent in mankind.
This won't make me stop riding my bike of course, but it has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I certainly don't feel the same way about it as I used to.
Trust is important, and trust is based on consistency. If you behave in a manner that is inconsistent with the way that you have led others to expect you to behave, then they will lose trust in you. It's as simple as that. And it hurts the most when the person or thing letting you down is something or someone that you have a lot invested in. That you trusted. That you loved.
