No cerebral stuff. In fact, I'm not even sure how to make this entry sound unwhiny or unangsty.

It's about someone close to my heart - me bro.

I found out today that my vocalisation of my rage and anger at certain games I've been playing may have driven my brother away from one. My brother usually takes crap well - except when the crap is dished out by me.

Let me explain a bit about my family - we are a bunch of forceful bull-headedly stubborn people. My usual tactic for dealing with my family is to relent and trip, or grit my teeth and dig my heels in. There's very little in between, there's very little room for compromise. My mother and I, especially, have sick sick senses of humour and tongues to match. My father and my brother, on the other hand, are just plain pig-headed and very very good at digging their heels.

Given this sort of background, I guess it would be easy to forget that behind our iron wills we're human beings too. I forgot that my brother doesn't have my thick skin for scathing remarks, and my brother forgets that I get hurt when he decides to be pig-headed. Add this to the mix that (1) we share the same circle of friends (2) we enjoy pretty much the same activities and (3) we both resent each other for what the other has and we have a situation that can only be described as "oil and water".

Let's get this even more complicated. My brother has the usual protective instinct of an elder brother, only the younger brother's both more succesful career-wise and romance-wise than him - and hence doesn't need protection, and consequently his "role in life" take a serious hit. On the other hand, I have an equal sense of wanting to care for my brother - only I want to be carefree and incorrigible like most younger brothers. In the words of a good friend, our normal family roles are reversed. I act more like the elder brother - tied down to responsibility and yearning to break free from it. Rich acts more like the younger brother that wants to be happy for the successful elder brother but can't.

So we avoid talking about it.

Don't knock it - it's worked for years. Just that occassionally, I get in my brother's face when my temper flares and I become hypercritical - mostly at others, but sometimes at him. He can't take that sort of thing from me, so he blows up and does something drastic. On many occassions it was public yelling. On this one - it's become even more avoidance, probably to channel his emotions somewhere else.

There are more complications of course. My bro thinks I'm being controlled by my mom (I am, but so that some degree of control and freedom can be retained). I think he hasn't a clue what he's doing with his life. I'm brutally honest about my disdain for other human beings - sometimes that includes him because I think he's given up on himself too soon. He's a decent fellow that listens a lot to what other people have to say (including some very misinformed opinions about me) - and consequently gets a lot of the flak from people who have something to say about me. We probably both think we're doing each other a favour too.

Yet, I love him deeply because he's my brother, and it infuriates me that I sometimes do stupid things that hurt him.

Still, nothing remains the only thing I can do, and therefore it remains what I do. I just pray that he finds what he's looking for one day.