by Bert Alweiss

Created on: June 07, 2009

Betrayal is a non-virtue that has stood the test of time similar to the parallel virtue of Trust. It lives everywhere, lurking behind all walls, its sharp claws ready to clutch and pierce the necks of the confident, the trusting and the gullible. If it is omnipresent, so is Trust. It's nature is as timeless and eternal as Love and Hate, Hot and Cold, War and Peace, Yin and Yang. What I mean is that we cannot define one without the other, since both are reflexive and dependent on one another.

Let's take a look at its nature. Have you not ever been betrayed before? Or, from the opposite end of the table, have you not ever betrayed somebody? It takes a perfect man who has not ever dropped an iota of betrayal in his life. Somehow, somewhere there must have been a point in time when a promise was broken because keeping it would mean loss of money, or stature or life. Despite its anathema, it can become a convenient excuse for self-protection, without considering the feelings of anyone who is at the losing end of any human contract.

But betrayal is utterly sinful from the point of view of the one being betrayed. Of course, we know that there are real smooth operators who are able to hide sinful indiscretions in between work and family and manage to get away with it. Marriages are broken because of this. Betrayal places the traitor in a state of sin which, although undiscovered, will be taken into account by a Higher Justice.

Betrayal is painful when it is committed by someone close to us or by people in high positions of trust. Remember Brutus who slew Julius Cesar? Was he not an honorable man? Was he not ambitious? Judas Iscariot is another historical figure who is an equivalence of the term Betrayal. The recent financial scandal involving Madoff who was considered an icon in the financial circles is another concrete example of how man is able to ride over the crest of trust by creating a rosy picture of getting rich overnight.

A litany of examples can be cited to support the proposition that Betrayal is a common occurrence, as natural as the sun rising from the east to adorn the day. Despite its being "inherent" in human nature, just remember this: Always put a sentinel in your thoughts lest you admit undesirable ones that can goad you to betray someone you love and those who esteem you as an honorable and trustworthy person.

(Also by same author as bertalways in ciao.com, Feb. 8, 2009)

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