The sea of suspicion

When I got married, my uncle gave me only this advice: The sea of suspicion has no shores!

The gravity of the statement did not hit me until recently when, again, I was moved by the common thread that connected a few disparate incidents! The common thread was “suspicion”.

I set out on a journey to understand suspicion! The objective was to find out why do we suspect? Should we suspect at all? If so what to suspect and importantly when to stop?

I think it’s in our nature as humans to doubt anything and everything. Biblical character the Doubting Thomas who doubted the resurrection of Christ himself is a typical example of how far we humans could go with suspicion! Now, if you say that you are a believer and have never doubted anything or anybody, please drop me a note, because, it is rarely in human kind we have had believers and I would be blessed to meet one!

Coming back to the story…

The root of suspicion is the inability to understand a particular thing or person. When someone does not understand something or someone they become insecure and consequently feel guilty. And as Shakespeare says, “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind!” The level of insecurity manifests in the magnitude of the action that follows, results of which could turn out to be either positive or negative.

There is a whole list of words to contextualize suspicion – doubt, misgiving, distrust, mistrust, disbelief, wariness, scepticism. Instead of eliminating this concept we have encouraged it! This means that our society actually encouraged suspicion as a thought process. Usually a thought process drives creativity. When that creativity is channelized in the right way we witness miracles. In effect, how creative we get with our suspicion and how well it is channelized decides whether we become an inventor or an intruder. So, in essence, my take is that it is OK to suspect!

A closely knit family, were celebrating a big event one day! There were quite a few people who participated. The following day a member of the house figured out that they had lost precious jewellery. The family suspected one close relative to have stolen it. After some discussions they added the house maids also to the suspects’ list. With each round of deliberation, it became a laundry list of suspects featuring the kith and kin resulting in heated arguments and heartaches.

Finally, the family decided to let go of the issue and make good for the lost jewellery. They did so because they did not want to name and shame someone (if it were a close relative) and also because they would not be able to deliver the harsh actions like a police complaint if it turned out to be someone who was socially and economically weak.

However, the discussion on “suspects” left a bitter taste amongst the family members. Suspicion took a toll on the person who lost the jewellery and others affected by the incident so much so that they were not able to treat/look at the “suspects” the same way as before.

On the other hand, let us look at some situations where suspicion has helped! Had the explorers not suspected that the earth is round, we would not have found the Americas. Had John Nash not suspected Adam Smith’s economic wisdom we wouldn’t have “Nash’s equilibrium” which has changed the face of competition, trade negotiations, game theory etc. To close the loop, but for suspicion, Saint Thomas would have remained “Doubting Thomas” and not become “Saint Thomas the believer”!

The solution lies in this quote: To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect. – Terence (a Roman dramatist)

Most of us cannot be “the believer” who knows “the truth” during one lifetime, so it is OK to suspect and doubt anything and everything. But if we cannot act on the outcome of a suspicion, we should not continue to be suspicious. When we feel that we are lost in suspicion about someone or something, the first thing we need to do is to seek to understand!

As they say, “When in doubt ask!”

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Sundararaman Viswanathan is engineer by qualification, manager by profession, aspiring writer and a wannabe entrepreneur at heart. He currently works as a Transition Manager, with vast experience in managing the support of mission critical IT systems.