I had a conversation with my little brother this morning about saving the world. Anyone who knows me. Or knows Conrad. Or has read my blog. Or has pretended to read my blog in order to demonstrate false interest in my egocentric expressions of thoughtful commentary knows that my baby brother is one of the most remarkable men I know. He is the kind of man whose character I want my son to emulate. He is the kind of human being I aspire to be. He is the reason, without question, that I will be an eternal spinster. First, because no man will ever treat me the way Conrad thinks I should be treated. And second, because even if a man could find a way to treat me like gold, he would most certainly have a character flaw that my little angel brother would see as a glaring red flag.
If I brought home a man who was the CEO of a fortune 500 company who committed the entirety of his annual earnings to feeding starving children and employing homeless veterans, Conrad would say "Sorry. Sis. He obviously has some heinous demons that he's harboring. And he's giving all that money away. He'll never be able to give you the lifestyle you deserve." If I introduced him to a member of Seal Team 6 and said "Little Brother. I want to introduce you to the man who killed the world's most criminal terrorist!" My brother would look at me and say "Oh you brought home a hero. I'm glad I got to meet him, but there's a lot of expectation that comes with being the most respected man on the planet. He won't have enough time to pay you the attention you deserve." I could put him on a space shuttle and send him to the space station to meet my new boyfriend, who is monitoring the Earth's counterpart deep in another universe, and Conrad would come back and say "Sister. He's in space. You don't think that's a little weird? It's not like he was the first guy to see the heart on Pluto or anything."
And every time something like this happens, I just look at my little brother and sigh and think "I am NEVER getting laid again." Ever.
But the point isn't that Conrad is obscenely overprotective of me. He might be. I know how lucky I am to have someone who loves me so much that he thinks the universe has not yet produced a man worthy of my love. It's not about his protection of me though. It's about his crusade. It's not just because I'm his sister that he protects me. It's because my little brother is on a crusade; a crusade to protect everything that is precious and vulnerable and persecuted. I can never fault him for that. In fact, I love him more than anything because of that.
When I was his age, saving the world was my crusade, too. I was going to educate the masses about unity and equality. My college classmates called me a communist. I wanted to fight big business and corporate sponsorship in government. My family called me an anarchist. I spoke out in defense of marginalized demographics, a wistful hippie. No matter where I turned, no matter what I defended, I became an outcast. To see my little brother, with all his hopes and ideals, facing an even more impossible truth than I did breaks my heart.
So, today, during our weekly diatribe about how to save the world, I finally told him that the world can't be saved, but we can clean up the piece that's most precious to us. It occurred to me, that somewhere between where Conrad is now and where I am now, I found a few things to crusade for. Instead of trying a way to fix it all, I now advocate for mental health awareness and empowering women through unity. I still find myself frustrated and cornered, at times. But because I don't champion 237 causes anymore, I can regroup from setbacks.
That was my message to my little brother today: Don't cloud your vision with everyone else's vision; don't be dissuaded by somebody who is fighting a different battle. There is so much injustice, so much inequality, so much disdain. So much stupidity out there...Don't fight agaist that. Fight where you can make a difference. Don't get mad at the Lion hunting dentist. Don't get mad at the guy who spits on the homeless guy at the intersection of Washington and McDowell. Don't get mad at the guy who yells at you because he can't see the difference between you and his father. We all have our battles to wage. We can't take on all of them.
On the same note, we cant get mad at people who don't champion for the same battles we fight. Again, my fights are mental health awareness and unifying women. Those are my battles. And those two things are really fucking hard to fight for. I can't fight for all of it. And I can fight for the people I love. I don't have as much fight in me as my little brother has. But fight for something.
-Inner Peas
No comments:
Post a Comment