My cool brother

Today, I had brunch with Missy, my coworker and friend, and her husband, Nevin. We were talking about mmorpg's and I started talking about Halo. I was really thankful, actually, that this came up. I don't know if many of you know, but one of my brothers is going through a really tough time. He's been so withdrawn that I sometimes feel almost like he's a ghost in my life. I hardly have anything to say about him, not because I don't love him or miss him or want to talk with him, but because although he's still present in my family's lives, he's very absent and refuses to engage us or life in general.

I was thinking back on playing Halo with him, and how amazing he is at that game. I usually kept quiet while playing it because people on that game are disgusting. Haha. And by that I mean, they will joke about "raping" and even do the motions (for those of you not familiar with Halo culture). Ten year olds curse each other out and just ooze homophobia and hatred of women.

In any case, one day, while playing Halo with my brother, I sniped from an elevated place, and the other team couldn't find me. They started trying to taunt me, first by cursing and such, but then they elevated their insults by saying, "Stop hiding like a girl!" My brother smirked, turned on his microphone, and said in a cool and calm matter of fact way, "Actually... she *is* a girl." Afterwards, all four of them came up to try to take me out, and I took three of them out in the process with my shotgun.

I also reflected on how intelligent and funny he is/was. I really miss those times. And I was so thankful to relive them today. I sometimes forget and try not to say anything about him because the most immediate thoughts about him tend to be a downer in conversation. Today, I was certian that I was smiling while telling that story, remembering my cool little brother. I miss him a lot. I pray that one day when I go back to the US, he'll be there, a whole person again, ready to engage and be present. Until then, I'll treasure those happy times and remember to summon them from my memory.

Good people, bad people

I feel I haven't been very fair to some lately. While I understand all people have flaws, I've run into people who I have judged rather harshly in my own heart. I don't mean that I hated them or wished them harm, but I did, and in some cases still do, feel rather displeased by patterns of their behavior or other aspects of their lives. Believe it or not, I'm rather stringent in terms of how I live my own life; I try my best to uphold the high expectations I carry for myself in terms of character and my own movement in the world. I disappoint myself quite often, but forgiveness, even of myself, is part of those expectations, and I've gradually learned to be better able to give myself time to work on bettering myself at a realistic rate.

In the meantime, because I hold those expectations for myself, I think I also tend to hold, to a lesser degree, high expectations for others around me. When people make mistakes, I try to understand, but when mistakes are patterns, and simply not mistakes at all, I take them as part of the person's character. If the person is hurting her or himself, then I want to say something to help them. If the person is hurting others, I can be quite judgmental. If the person hurts me, I try to find out what I may be doing wrong first, and if I find nothing, then I try to find out what circumstantial influences may have played as a variable in this perceived slight. If it happens more than once without any wrongdoing on my part, I assume that the person is the one in question.

What I mean by unfair is this: we are at our best when we're happy and feeling secure, but when we are feeling unhappy and unstable, we often become, in some form or another, little monsters. We punish ourselves or others for our unhappiness, and we often find ourselves spiraling into a pattern of hurt and humiliation and anger and sadness and bad decisions. While it's not an excuse, happiness or the lack of happiness is a powerful influence in how we interact with others. Being responsible and mature is difficult when we're deeply unhappy, even for the best of us. Even just being too hungry or tired brings out a little monster in me at times, so being depressed or deeply wounded would certainly bring out a side of me that I would rather remain dormant and hidden away. It's understandable and very human.

I believe that most people who are behaving in destructive ways are unhappy, and are often caught in a spiral between their unhappiness and the behavior that springs from their unhappiness. Both feed off of each other, and it's so very difficult to climb out of that awful place. Some people I've met have always behaved destructively for as long as I've known them, but knowing someone for a year or two doesn't mean I know their full character. Being unhappy has no time limit. Some people, I've never known when they were happy; all I've seen is their unhappiness, with their little monsters lashing out in some way, trying to protect themselves, but only pushing themselves deeper down into that spiral. I should remember this.

Of course, being unhappy is when we learn about those little monsters within us. Only when we're unhappy can we really work to tame them, perhaps even vanquish them. We learn how to cope, to work through problems, to constructively talk with others, to express ourselves, to pinpoint the roots of our unhappiness, to take care of ourselves, and to nurture things that we value and admire, rather than those monsters that continue to bring us back down.

However, this take a lot of strength, and unhappiness, as well as those little monsters, tend to be vampires of energy and motivation. What becomes most prominent is the weight of the unhappiness and the constant urge to alleviate the problem as quickly as possible, usually by short term means, such as escapism, passivity, blaming others, substances, and the like. These short term means are, of course, adding to the problem, but oh so tempting to someone who simply wants to feel, for some short period of time, appreciated, hopeful, normal... happy.

And I should not only *try* to understand, but just *understand.* I have plenty of little monsters, despite my strict self-character training. I've been down and unhappy in my past. I've lashed out at others. I've avoided my problems before. Other people do the same things, sometimes in different ways, but it's all from the same root and the same feelings and the same hurts. I may know it's not healthy to be around someone who is simply destroying and harming everything around him or her, but I know we're all human and all flawed. Help won't come from being disappointed or upset at someone who is already in pain. Help comes from real understanding and wisdom. I hope I can achieve both those things.