To state the obvious: neither man nor machine is infallible. There isn’t a machine made that isn’t capable of going wrong, nor a person born who is incapable of doing the unexpected. In short, you can’t have total trust in either.
What we choose to have, however, is what might be called provisional confidence. When you climb into the car in the morning you expect it to start and run normally; and when your husband of thirty years standing who’s never put a foot wrong says he has to work late tonight, you don’t disbelieve him. Provisional confidence; it’s a fundamental platform on which we walk the road of life, and it’s what’s so lacking in mine at the moment.
I’ve had so many problems with technology lately that every time I turn anything on I expect it to malfunction. Various experts have assured me that things are fixed and perfect now, but they’re not. I’ve had so many problems with people lately that I’ve developed a high degree of circumspection with regard to my expectations of anybody. And having a new agent forecasting high rent rises, plus the prospect of a new neighbour occupying part of what I’ve come to regard as my space, means I have no confidence in being able to stay in my little corner of Avalon.
The amount of provisional confidence I have in most aspects of my life has dwindled to a low ebb, and it’s an uncomfortable frame of mind to live with.
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