Encounters and the Economy of Trust
“There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
Yesterday, I was discussing with a friend the disappointment and joy of encounters.
Today, I want to continue my reflection with this quote. How many bad encounters does it take to find the right associate, a good client, a solid partner? How many proposals before sealing a deal? What miracle lies behind every successful relationship? And to whom should we refer?
I choose to refer to Al-Ghazali.
In Tahafut al-Falasifa, he argues that what we call “natural laws” are merely habits established by God—sequences of events that appear necessary but remain subject to a higher will. A miracle is not a rupture; it is simply a reordering of things by the One who holds the key.
Applied to human relationships, this idea resonates differently: trust does not emerge from a mere accumulation of rational calculations, but from an invisible web of intuitions, circumstances, and synchronicities. What we call chance or destiny may very well be a miracle we fail to recognize.
But there is another structuring element in this path, a necessary gap within its mystery: forgetting. Al-Insān, the name given to us, is said to stem from Al-Nisyān—forgetfulness. Isn’t forgetting precisely what allows us to move forward after failure, to try again without being paralyzed by the memory of disappointments, to welcome each encounter with renewed freshness? Without forgetting, the economy of trust would not exist; we would be trapped in an endless archive of doubt.
So, should we despair over wrong turns, broken promises, or accumulated failures? Or should we see, behind each forgotten disappointment, the silent refinement of a trajectory leading us to the right alliance—the one that, in an instant, rearranges chaos and makes sense of it all?
Al-Ghazali would likely invite us not to lock ourselves into a rigid view of human relationships but to accept that they move within a larger order, where even patience, loss, and forgetting contribute to a greater balance.
A miracle, then.
And perhaps all it takes is a fresh perspective, on a Sunday in Ramadan, to see it.
(Translated with AI assistance.)
Photo de Greg Rakozy sur Unsplash
