Well, not exactly sibling rivalry....

Be cohesive.
Know the difference between real values and perceived values.
Just do it.
Live your dream.
My brother was probably trying to pass on words of motivation and wisdom, but the delivery was more like a lecture during our phone conversation yesterday. I am still reeling from his words today. My brother and I, though only a year apart, are very different people.
He has always been a genius his entire life, grasping complex and mechanical concepts with such ease. He was the gifted scholar, the charming orator, the over-the-top percentile overachiever, academician.
I was the sibling who had to work harder just to push into the 'average' percentile. Today, having met with extreme success in his finance profession, he continues his priority of the pursuit of more wealth and the finer things in life, the champagne wishes and caviar dreams, as Robin Leach called it. Incidentally, that was one of his favorite shows while we were growing up. My favorite was Private Benjamin. I envisioned a life filled with travel, discipline, structure and regimen.
So it stung yesterday, when my brother told me he doesn’t see me going for the gold, literally...or living my dream and to just do it!
During our phone call, (he lives in the east-coast) I admit I was in my non-cohesive, non-sequitor manner of speech...just being me. I shared with him all the things that excited me of late.
I told him about the MSN article I had read about astronomers believing that they may find planets like Earth within our galaxy in the next five years based on a method of observing stars in the cosmos. The star, if like Earth, would revolve around a bigger star and due to the existence of gravity, it will therefore have a slight wobble-like effect in its orbit and scientists have trained their eyes to recognize this. I rejoiced with the excitement that an Earth, much like our stunning blue planet, with majestic mountains and bodies of water and temperate climates could somehow sustain alien life. This description provoked me to visualize the imagery of an Earth II, populated with a life-form like us...but my reaction was to question what kind of social system they would have? Would the species be plagued with the same issues we suffer as well as the dramas we create in our lives? I was mesmerized with these thoughts and suddenly Earth, us, our entire civilization seemed to me to be so small.
"But we'll never meet them," was my brother's reply.
Undisturbed, I went on with my happy news of having heard from my dearest friend Tanya recently. The girl with whom I became such good friends with in France, that she christened me her, 'jumelle,' French for twin sister. After we both separated from France, her life took on an intriguing path. She met an older French-Canadian man when she returned home to Hong Kong. They fell in love at the French consulate where they both worked at. The day eventually came for him to be stationed to another location, Nigeria! So she dropped everything, chose love and followed him! Living in an utterly foreign environment, she spends her days seeking out new friends, practicing yoga and taking on little contract projects at the French consulate to pass the day in this English-speaking African nation.
I relish such stories, laughing, telling my brother that it's like the stuff of novels, witnessing the way life unfolds in other people's lives. But, then began my brother's lecture on the distinction of perceived value versus real value. What real value is she gaining from living so far away, in a foreign, temperamental country with erratic threats?, he reasoned.
Well, for the culture, the memories, the exposure...but I could not exclaim it, silenced by what I felt to be an attack, an admonishment. What is wrong with the way I live, the way my friends live, if money isn't our sole motivation?
I've had some terrific moments in life and can be proud of having finished college, having trained with the Army and having lived and traveled about overseas.
But in naming these successes, my brother said I was being backwards-looking. I was living in the past, not unlike the high-school prom queen or football player, working a menial job now, but continuously glorifying the achievements of their past, unable to look into the future.
What stings most is perhaps the inkling of truth I am willing to see in my sibling's words.
And so comes the challenge of trying to be cohesive enough to remind myself that we are two very different people with very different ideals, and that all of our personal choices are legitimate. I would rather be a traveling vagabond, collecting stories on people than work at something uninteresting in order to live in a mansion.
But, where he is right, I need to focus on looking beyond....

Household Routines

Bubba is becoming a whiz maneuvering around in his wheelchair. It’s like an extension of him. It has been four-weeks since the tarsal tunnel surgery on his foot and he is still not capable of bearing weight on it.
As mentioned, he is in good spirits. We had unusually incredible weather for a few days last week and I set out a lounge chair in the backyard for him so he could absorb some sun rays. I think the heat did wonders in healing his heavily sutured (mattress stitched) wound.
Sitting under the sun, I realize again, how much of an outdoorsy man I have. Even during these recommended rest-heavy recovery days, he is constantly working on something. He has been sharpening and polishing his ever growing collection of kukhuris, made and shipped from Nepal.
Unhappy with one of the handles, he set about creating a brand new handle with a piece of smooth antler horn bone he must have acquired from his days as a hunter. He sawed the pieces neatly and used an epoxy to hold it onto the knife and then he polished it with several levels of sanding paper. He explained a lot of it to me as he worked and I found it fascinating to watch him in action.
Even with my latest routine renounced, the hours in a day are still flying by. I spend my mornings working out my entrepreneurial ideas on paper and I also do quite a bit of online research. As Bubba wakes up, I make his daily cup of black tea and usually a late breakfast of bacon and French toast or a bacon bagel. I will usually go out for a run and then return to do more online computing. By this time, Bubba is already either online or working on his next project. He is currently building a survival kit (ordering all the contents piecemeal from different websites) to give away as Christmas gifts to his daughters and sister. I enjoy watching him engage in this passion of preparing for disaster and planning strategies to survive in the elements.
His activities are compelling me to think up an entrepreneurial venture utilizing his knowledge. However, everything remains in mid-air until he recovers from his surgery. But, his treatments remain ongoing as his pain remains chronic and he may have another surgery in a few months. Luckily, we will have Kat for a month this summer. She will no doubt contribute her part to all the chores, to wake up bright and early with me, to join me on my runs and to simply put a big smile on my face with her sweet persona. I cannot wait to see again this (though soon-to-be 15-year old) charming beauty I’ve inherited.

I have been succumbing to my sweet tooth during lunch and I am developing a skill for boiling up my own sweet tapioca pearls. I have made some delicious shakes to go with my tapioca pearls to include: avocado, strawberry banana, rainbow sherbet and watermelon…however I have yet to perfect my favorite jasmine tea brew. I have some extra time now, it’s something I ought to learn so I don't have to shell out $3 each time to satisfy this craving.

Latest Routine RENOUNCED

"There are infinite joys in the world – but where? If you're stuck on how to get back to the carnival ride that is your life, take a walk down memory lane. ..See? You know how to be happy. Now do it again."
Though, I’m not an absolute subscriber to astrology, I like reading my daily horoscope in the newspaper. I let the string of words stew about inside my head. I cut out all the ones that leave an instant impression. These little clippings are scattered all over the place. If I'm organized, I'll tape them to the covers of my notebooks, saving them as I'd save a favorite quote. I found the above on my dresser table. Reading it helped me to summon an onslaught of happy memories, such as the night my traveling friend Tanya and I spent hopping around all the dance clubs at the Barcelona waterfront escorted by French sailors as we had talked ourselves aboard their naval sailboat earlier in the day...discovering that actor/director John Malkovich had moved into a penthouse in the bourgeois building where I rented an attic studio as a student in France...seeing the hot, orange sun paint the Georgia horizon rouge as I made my parachute jumps out of a C-130 in Army Airborne school.
With these incredible images, I found the courage to renounce my latest routine. I quit the job I have been working at. I sauntered out with the latest exodus, but I did do the polite thing and gave my two weeks and helped train a new replacement, which is more than they've initially provided me.
In the time I've been there, I watched as a third of their workforce left. The lack of technical support, an overly glamorized job description and an indifferent chain-of-command made my job doubly hard! I put in extra long hours, worked through lunch, suffered from stiff neck and sore wrists daily and was too tired to exercise at the end of the day. It was so demoralizing, but yet I beefed up my tolerance and refused to be a quitter. In the end, I resolved it was time to go when, even my superior quit. And on the day I left, the new hire revealed how he did not find the job interesting.

Sapped of all my prime hours and energy up until today, I haven't allowed my music to bloom on these pages. I have had some profound conversations, now passed, with family and friends about our generation and our spirit of entrepreunerialship. My friend reconnected with me to tell me about her speed dating experiences and how by coming away disappointed she thought about engaging the private sector to design her own dating company.
In listening to others discuss life plans, I figured my own plan of action is to invest these next few months to really challenge myself to gain insight into marketing and business so that I too may engage the private sector to share my passion of travel via consulting. I have yet to visualize how to package such a grand ambition.
Fortunately, I'm in good company. My science-minded cousin has agreed to find time from her busy bio-chem job to brainstorm and pow-wow with me on the weekends. My other cousin, recently married, recovering from surgery, working on a screenplay and trying to procreate is offering me every free minute of her time, to support my whimsical ideas.
Being free of routine (again), I spent today brainstorming, surfing the net and then went out for a long run in the park. I also subjected my body to an intense strength circuit course. I know I'll wake up hurting tomorrow. I also spent the day making meals for Bubba and doing his laundry. He had a very invasive leg surgery recently, another in a series of operations that the doctors think will relieve him of his chronic pain. Bubba is immobile and spends his days alternating between sharpening his khukuri knives, (he gave me one for my birthday, too!) reading internet forums on knives, watching television and braiding rope. Though, somewhat reclusive, it is good progress to see him clear headed and in good spirits.