Trusting strangers

How much do we really trust each other? And I'm not talking about our friends or family. I'm talking about the guy making my hamburger at Wendy's, or the driver passing me on the highway at 60 mph, or the dentist knocking me out with nitrous oxide. How do I know that this kid isn't spitting on my burger, the driver isn't suicidal, and the dentist isn't a pervert? I don't, and yet I put my health, life and chastity in their hands with hardly a thought. Why?

I don't think it's that we're naïve. I think we all realize there are deranged people out there, and that we're constantly at risk. But I also think that we bet on the odds--we feel that the odds are in our favor. "How likely is it that the suicidal driver will pick me out of an endless row of cars to crash himself into?" we decide. And, by thinking this way, we feel anonymous. When we watch the news and we see the woman shot by a high-powered rifle while filling up at a gas station, we think: "That will never happen to me."

You know that it's true. We really feel this way. That's why, when you're watching the news, these random victims will usually say, "I never thought it would happen to me." The news loves it when they say that because it's dramatic and personal and foreboding.

When it comes down to it, there's nothing really that we can do. We can't spend our lives locked up in safe houses. We must put our food and our lives in strangers' hands constantly in our society. There's no going about it. And so we survive by not thinking about it. I once read a quote which said "We live our lives like a cart horse walking a precipice. The whip impels us forward; the blinders keep us from seeing the horror which surrounds us." That's a paraphrase, but you get the gist.

I suppose the only way for our self-deception to work is for us to feel anonymous ... unimportant. As soon as we start feeling noteworthy, we become paranoid. I once worked in the mall, and met a man who was paranoid delusional. He thought that the government was tracking his every move, trying to poison him. He was probably the most frightening person I've ever met.