i do get consumed by hatred for my brother. at the same time, i have this curiosity about him. i feel sympathy for him at times, in an abstract sort of way. and yes, there is a begrudging admiration for him, when i think of the things he did when he was young, the enormity of the pressures placed upon him. but if i were to see him on the street- well, i'd probably cross the street. i'm kind of a coward that way. yes, i'll admit it. i mean, what would i say? and how would i take it, to be snubbed yet again? the thing i always hated so much about my brother is that when i would try to say something important to him, he would just turn the channel to fox news... or to some sports shit... like what i had to say couldn't be more important than the latest obama bashing shit. and before long, what i had to say WASN'T important...
i guess that's what i hate. and maybe this relates to the writing, to EVERYTHING. the fact that, in this world, if things aren't presented, packaged, then it's almost as though they don't exist. EVEN, or ESPECIALLY, in those cases where a person's voice, a person's personhood, is so fractured and frayed that there isn't a voice left. as the white supremacists said of george floyd, "if you can say 'i can't breathe,' then you're breathing." maybe it's the same here. the people who often have the most important things to say, the people who probably have the most insight with regards to the power dynamics, etc. often are the ones who cannot articulate themselves, for whatever reason... they have no effective voice.
the reason i bring this up is this: my brother is a pretty package. and when he talks everything is clear, brilliant. clear edges. clear shapes. vital feelings. even i get caught up in it all. but it isn't the truth. and it's taken me so long to determine that what he says is not the truth, is not the only truth. this, coming from me, who takes so many sides that he cannot really determine what his side is... but i say, what he says, what the world recognizes, isn't the only truth. and i wanted to make that clear. that's what i want to say in this story.
it's not about pity. i don't want it to be about pity. i don't want it to be about how my brother abused me, boo hoo hoo. i want there to be some sort of redemption for my way of being, for the way of the second brother, the one who cannot take the main path, because his roadhog brother is there... the way of someone who must by nature be indirect, vague. and whether it is possible for that to be a position in and of itself. and whether that position is positive, has some redeeming quality about it. because that's what i really want.
and the gamble of this story is... if it's unconvincing, then perhaps i am as well. and perhaps everything i've staked my existence on is not convincing as well. and then we get a repeat of my relationship to my brother... turn the channel to fox. oh, you said something?
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mamet said something about how you have to write from the unconscious. the only problem is that the unconscious doesn't appreciate structure, and will rebel against it. and narrative, whether we like it or not, has a structure. it is in its dna. so the writer's work is always a negotiation. or rather, a preparation, not unlike cooking. taking something that was once alive, hopefully fresh, and then cooking and seasoning it just right so that it is palatable. relatable. whatever...
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mamet also said... and he seemed to be paraphrasing hemingway? that the best way to write was to sit at the typewriter and bleed. he also said something like "get out of the boat and swim like the rest of us." in other words, there is no shortcut. there is no easy way out. just dive in and struggle. so i guess that's what i've been avoiding, and it's what i have to get back to.
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