Thought Picnic: Et tu, Brute?

A history of betrayals

“Nothing is more damaging than to feel a sense of betrayal from those you have dared to call friends.” That is what he said to me. I could see the hurt and it was likely that the box of tissues will come in handy.

When you look at it, it is a sentence that that has been uttered through the ages by many demonstrated by a Judas Iscariot kiss, a Brutus stab, an unkind quip or an indifference to another man’s plight.

Almost like me

My friend had quite similar circumstances, throughout his working life; he had deigned to make friends and establishing relationships with the people he worked with. I have known him to care, to get involved, to appreciate and to engage.

Obviously, he was also a tough cookie, God knows there are times when certain colleagues have cursed under their breath but he has always meant well, for the good and the better all to deliver the best for whatever organisation he has worked for, testament to that is number of times he has been reunited to colleagues in other companies and projects because they felt he had something to give.

Even I have wondered how his life could almost parallel mine, it is uncanny if not scary as he fell upon some misfortune that kept him out of his line of work and expertise for a while and now he is actively ready to reengage and do what he knows best to do, he could in the same chorus as I say – deliver solutions.

Learning the hard way

His professional network have always been informed of his situation so one would hope that whenever any good opportunity comes up his name like times before will automatically come into focus.

Social media can be nice and it can also deliver very cruel news, he must have been out of sight and out of the mind of one such group of friends when he discovered that a job that would have so suited him if they had asked him went to a complete stranger.

One’s inclination will be to mount a railing accusation but to what end? Like that story of old, for the good of Rome, one would suppose the last words of Julius Caesar as the first stab went in from his good friend Marcus Brutus was “Et tu, Brute?”

Only this time, Caesar will live; nursing his wounds and life will go on. We all still need friends – ones to betray us and others to help us. Such is life.