Near the beginning of my college journey I was having a conversation with one of my professors about Shakespeare. It lead to him asking me, “Which character in Julius Caesar do you see yourself as?”
I wanted to say “Julius Caesar.” After all, the people loved him! Sure, not all of his peers liked him, but at the time I just equated it to jealousy.
Who wouldn’t want to view oneself as a ruler who is overwhelmingly adored by his or her people?
Caesar’s weaknesses were emphasized throughout the play, yet he was still an extremely well liked and successful ruler.
But, instead of saying Julius Caesar I said Brutus.
In fact, I said, “While I would like to say Julius Caesar because he was well-liked by his people and ruled well, it’s more accurate for me to say Brutus.”
Brutus is perhaps one of the most complex characters in literature.
On one hand, Brutus’ commitment to honorable and noble behavior is the main driving force of his actions.
Yet, he struggles with being practical throughout the play, and he often comes off as a little bit naïve.
Brutus doesn’t read Cassius’ letters for what they truly are—being too naïve to truly study the language behind them.
Brutus also fails to realize that Antony is viewing him as his opponent—capitalizing on every opportunity he can to utilize Brutus’ naivety against him.
One of the most famous examples of Brutus’ naivety is when he speaks to the people on behalf of the conspirators to explain the rationale behind Caesar’s assassination.
Instead, Brutus merely evokes the emotions of the Roman people, causing them to make judgments based off of their feelings instead of facts. Brutus, though, feels as though he has given a reasonable oration.
Now, we aren’t all struggling with the same character flaws as Brutus—nor do we all have the same positive character traits that Brutus has either.
But, at the end of the day, we’re more like Brutus than we would probably care to admit.
We typically commit actions that we think will be beneficial in one way or the other.
Some of these actions are obvious—like eating. We eat food, so we don’t starve.
But, some of these actions are less obvious—like when you wait until the night before to write an entire essay. You still made that choice though because you found it more beneficial (at least in the spur of the moment) to watch another episode of your favorite show on Netflix than write your essay.
Brutus acted in the manner that he did because he thought that everything he was doing was committed to justice—he didn’t recognize, though, that not everyone in the world has his same commitment or worldview.
We’re all flawed human beings, whether we realize it or not, and we’re often more like Brutus than we’d like to admit.
It would be great if we were always adored by everyone and always made the right executive choices, but we don’t.
Maybe it’s time we start embracing our inner Brutus, and capitalize on what we do well—yet strive to recognize our shortcomings, so our strengths aren’t also turned into weaknesses like Brutus.
