Big bro
I used to fear my older brother. Now I'm just confused by him.
When I was young, my older brother was the instigator. He loved causing chaos, despair, and pain. If that makes him sound like a supervillain, well, he was. He would stuff my youngest brother in a sleeping bag and hurl him down the stairs. He would make unreasonable demands and administer beatings if they were not met. At one point he even turned the shed into his own personal mad science laboratory, concocting bombs and maybe even drugs. I don't even know. The stories I could tell of his reign of terror are too long and too personal to go into here, but suffice to say I've spent much of my life dreading his presence. I never understood why he did these things, or what kind of sick pleasure he derived from them. I just didn't get him.
The brother of today is different from the brother of those days, though. This brother is contemplative, even insightful. He reads a lot more. He carries a well-balanced worldview that is constantly changing and yet manages to be the closest thing to "correct" I've been exposed to. He is able to critically analyze any thought as he is exposed to it, pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of an entire ideology with merely a passing glance. He thinks on a completely different level than I do.
And after he's done philosophizing, he goes out and gets either roaring drunk or completely baked.
I STILL don't get him.
When I was young, my older brother was the instigator. He loved causing chaos, despair, and pain. If that makes him sound like a supervillain, well, he was. He would stuff my youngest brother in a sleeping bag and hurl him down the stairs. He would make unreasonable demands and administer beatings if they were not met. At one point he even turned the shed into his own personal mad science laboratory, concocting bombs and maybe even drugs. I don't even know. The stories I could tell of his reign of terror are too long and too personal to go into here, but suffice to say I've spent much of my life dreading his presence. I never understood why he did these things, or what kind of sick pleasure he derived from them. I just didn't get him.
The brother of today is different from the brother of those days, though. This brother is contemplative, even insightful. He reads a lot more. He carries a well-balanced worldview that is constantly changing and yet manages to be the closest thing to "correct" I've been exposed to. He is able to critically analyze any thought as he is exposed to it, pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of an entire ideology with merely a passing glance. He thinks on a completely different level than I do.
And after he's done philosophizing, he goes out and gets either roaring drunk or completely baked.
I STILL don't get him.