Kurt Vonnegut once said, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” This quote always tends to show up at one point or another when I talk to my brother. It’s like an old tattoo that you forget about until you roll up your sleeve. My brother, Ricky, taught me a number of things from the importance of recognizing the legitimacy of other people’s narratives to simple things like how to download movies, but other things I was taught internally anger me now, though I can’t be angry at him for presenting them, since they were meant to be said for my benefit.
While I was still in middle school, I had a tendency to rebel against rules or policies that I considered redundant. One of those things was the dress code. We were required to tuck in our shirts and that ticked me off, still does. I would be sent to discipline all the time for not tucking it in. It got to the point where one of the deans threatened expulsion if I continued to disregard the dress code.
I came home that day, and my brother happened to be over. My parents thought the idea of having to tuck in our shirts was stupid as well, because it affected the learning process in no evident way. In the midst of me whining about it, my brother cut me off: “That’s a small price to pay for a free education though, isn’t it?”
At the time, I didn’t have enough knowledge to realize that it wasn’t necessarily free. However, this was a valid point, because it is ostensibly free due to the way our system is set up, and it does not cost me, as an individual 7th grader at the time any money. I was at a loss for words, because I just didn’t consider that. I acted well in school after that.
While I was doing well, and while I was also beginning to make good grades for the first time in my life since elementary, I noticed him start to reward it. He would do that in both financial and emotional terms. Financially, he’d take me to football games or take me to places like the movies when The Dark Knight Rises came out over the summer that led into 8th grade. Emotionally, simply by saying things like “Keep that up, and you could end up in a major university. They recognize that kind of thing. Turn-arounds, people getting better, it’s something institutions look at.” I thought he was full of crap back then, but it was flattering to hear. The turn-around thing I think is true now, since Mrs. Delk, a teacher of English for I.B. and creative writing for nearly forty years mentioned the same thing to me last year. It’s a comforting idea.
At the time, I couldn’t pick up on the fact that what he was doing to me was called “operant conditioning.” It didn’t bother me that I was acting because of the potential rewards that I might find in life, but it did bother me that I was acting. Every time I look back on how I felt, I notice that I either did not feel, or I simply felt bad. Most of my 8th grade year was spent in adolescent depression, which is nothing unusual. My grades were higher, but my eyes cast low. My “intelligence” grew, and my heart shrunk. These poor feelings were a side effect of denying myself the joy of uninhibited action.
While being wrapped in the “good” behavior I was rewarded for, I was also held on the outside of a glass box, holding in that “bad” behavior for which I wanted to succumb. Not all of it was bad, though. One of those “bad” things was becoming a writer, was going into the arts. My brother is going to USF, studying organizational communications, and identifies as a humanist and an existentialist. Ricky was the judge of what behavior was good, and what behavior was bad.
I think about going into the arts everyday, and it’s always countered in my head by the scolding that I fear my brother would have to offer in response to me doing so. He tells me that I should try to get into a major university, that I should begin a portfolio to get myself on track for a healthy 401-k retirement. All of these advices are benevolent, or at the very least seeming as such, but they don’t always suit the person I am. One of these instances is actually the portfolio incident that happened just months ago, when I said “I don’t really want a 401-k plan.” My brother said that was stupid, said social security was going to dry up well before the age I could retire. The conversation went something like this, starting with my father telling my brother that he should help me develop that plan:
“I don’t really want a 401-k,” I said.
“That’s stupid. You’re not going to be able to retire.” I laughed at that.
“I don’t really plan on living THAT long.” He looked at me, dumbfounded.
“Still,” he said in a disappointed and condescending manner, shaking his head “why WOULDN’T you want more money?” I sighed, shook my head, and we continued with whatever we were doing that day.
I understand that it is necessary to have money in order to participate in the economy and get that it can help some people live comfortably. But that is entirely subjective. I can live happily in a studio apartment in the deep south with an old laptop and a bunch of books, though I’d prefer to live in a studio apartment in the north with an old laptop and a bunch of books. Regardless of what I wanted, I started to work on a portfolio that is subject to change, you know, because I’ve lived less than a fourth of my life expectancy and there’s a plethora of problems I haven’t even begun to deal with yet.
Freshman year was the best year of my life in terms of creative productivity in YJP and Mrs. Delk’s class, making it into the show class after my first year and pulling first place in the district poetry contest for ninth graders. In addition, I began the year with crappy grades and had a lousy two-point-one GPA at the end of the first semester. Then with enough coffee, serotonin boosters, and helpful teachers, I ended up with an A in every class for the next semester. I brought my GPA up substantially, to a three-point-one. I’m closer to a three-point-five now, which my brother tells me to aim for, so that I can attend a major university directly after high school.
I get told by my parents and peers and teachers and sometimes my brother that I am “very smart.” Flattering, though as soon as I don’t get something in class I spin into an existential crisis, because maybe, I’m not as smart as I was told, or I’m not smart enough, or I’m possibly stupid. I could ramble on about how we’re all stupid, and that as much as much as we come to know, we will always know less than what is out there to be known and the best we can do is try to not be stupid. But that’s for another discussion.
By the time I graduate high school, I will have four years of YJP, four of FEA, two years of French, and over 200 community service hours, maybe more. Saying that to myself really falsely inflates my ego. It sounds showy and kind of pretentious to me, so when I look back or forward on the good things I have done – or will do, I just say, “good for me.” I know that these are only small and personal achievements, and sometimes I wish I was more modest and acted less like a semi-narcissistic bastard.
With all of this considered, I am standing here today wearing a polo and slacks and parted hair, because I’ve pretended to be that person. I have pretended that I am someone who wants to go to college right after high school, though I’m in no hurry to do so. I have given into the standards set by my brother in order to function in society in an acceptable and even respectable fashion.
However, I still plan to go into the arts. Kurt Vonnegut also said that was a way to really hurt your parents, going into the arts. In my case, brother, though that’s not my intention, just as his intention was not specifically to push me away from writing. I understand that art is not considered a way to make a living, but it sure as hell makes life worth living – or at least tolerable.
