The Importance of Trust

I’ll keep it brief today. It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here in Eire-Land, and I’m sure we all have things to be getting on with. I’m looking forward to welcoming a friend to my home later today and giving her a restful weekend where she will be looked after and pampered, so I’ll be happily, busily preparing for that today.

Just like this!
Image: jesusjazzbuddhism.org

I just wanted to write a quick note about Trust, and how important it is, and how it still has a place in this world of ours despite all the hatred and suspicion that we have to live with on a daily basis. Doing anything creative involves a huge amount of trust – we have to trust ourselves, for a start, that we know what we’re doing when we follow the call to create. We have to trust other people to allow us the space we need to do whatever it is we have to do. We have to trust them not to sabotage us, or not to undermine us – even when they mean well. We have to trust our audience, that their taste will lead them towards our work and that they’ll enjoy it enough to spread the word; we have to trust that our efforts to create something will inspire others to do the same, and that a cycle of newness will be kickstarted from our one moment of bravery.

And we have to be able to trust that people will help us, if we ask them to.

I’ve just watched a TED talk, given by the luminously talented Amanda Palmer, where she talks about this very thing. I won’t attempt to paraphrase her words, but I’ll just leave this link here:

and hope that it works.

Amanda Palmer’s talk is short enough to watch in one sitting, but (like everything she does) it’s full of honesty and love, and shot through with humour and a sense of freedom like very few other artists possess. I like her music, but more than that I respect her as an artist, and as a person. Her talk mentions how she learned to trust her audience while working as a street performer, and how she took that trust through to her later music career. When she asked for help to make an album, she was rewarded beyond anything she could have imagined – she says it’s because she connected with her audience, and trusted them to catch her when she took a leap of faith.

If only we were all so brave.

Have a wonderful Saturday.