Have you ever been betrayed? Have you ever betrayed anyone?
Have you ever been betrayed? I would guess everyone would say yes, more than once. But then that must mean there are a lot of betrayers out there. People who cheated on those who trusted them, loved them, these are the betrayers, usually for love or money. How do betrayers live with themselves? How do cowards? People are witnesses to their own actions, they know what they have done or not done. To be able to live with themselves, they rationalize their actions. And they go on.
I like to believe that they end up paying for it, that their "cover-up" only works superficially. That they create a space inside themselves which is full of self-loathing and they try not to acknowledge it. These people perhaps develop addictions and disease. I like to think so, its the justice of karma.
All this talk about moral relativity. Obviously there is some truth to it as there is some difference in the morality found in different cultures. If you watch very young children, they definitely have little or no sense of "morality". They will grab a doll or toy from a smaller child when they want it. They seem to have no compassion or very little. These are things that will come hopefully, with maturity.
It seems that most of us know when we are doing something "wrong", at the expense of others, yet some of us do it anyway. Perhaps because our needs outweigh our conscience. Our lust outweighs our devotion to our beloved. Our desperation for money leads us to betray those who give us their trust.
Sometimes I like to think that this world of concrete that we inhabit is but a thick outershell in which we hide, work, and live in, like a snail, inside our shell, we are weak, spineless, slimy characters (betrayers). The concrete jungle, the tall buildings that daily house (incarcerate) all the slaves who obediently file in each morning and work all day just to get paid enough to live another day and to continue until they are too old to be of use.
This Orwellian world we call "home" can be so sad. Only the superficial can be happy, some believe. The betrayal that I am writing about is bigger than we can imagine. We are all being betrayed, even the betrayers. We are manipulated, lied to, programmed. Everything is false, and it seems that we are hopelessly trapped. We are led by the corrupt (the big betrayers) and we know it, most of us, and we can only feel helpless and impotent. When Hamlet discovered that "all was corrupt in Denmark", he felt compelled to act. It cost him his life. Most of us don't go that far. We just live with our cowardly, impotent selves, doing everything possible to bury that into our subconscious, where it remains and slowly eats away at us through disease and/or addiction. Maybe that is why cancer is rampant. Living lives of distractions, hiding and covering the hideously ugly truth of ourselves.
Its quite possible all this spirituality and self-help stuff that abounds is related to this. But no one is talking about this. Perhaps it would be too painful for most, like the Dorian Grey in literature, who when he looked in the mirror saw himself in all of his actual hideousness, that ordinarily was completely supressed.
Have you ever been betrayed? Have you ever betrayed anyone?