A STARK RAVING MAD LUNATIC???

My brother is crazy.

In a good way, if there is any such thing.

Back in the day, this was considered a compliment.

Because then, implicit in this characterization, was the unmistakable notion that you could be a whack job and perfectly sane at the same time.

You could flip a switch.

You were in control.

It was up to you, in the sense that depending on the given circumstance of the moment and the level of appropriateness required, you could modulate your behavior accordingly.

Think dimmer switch.

Or even volume dial.

There was a degree of rational thought involved.

A simple by-product of youth demanded that a mistake or two be made along the way, but the older you got, ideally, the fewer the mistakes.

Makes sense.

Except when it doesn’t.

It is either due to a supreme self-confidence or to those unyielding and relentless waves of self-doubt and insecurity, that one can become maddeningly stubborn and choose not to see it.

Toss in a dash of steely resolve and more than a few dollops of narcissism — two key ingredients — and the recipe for an unwillingness to consider another viewpoint or somebody else’s thought process, is nearly complete.

A tendency to avoid considering somebody else, period, can be established and become entrenched; after all, it’s a foregone conclusion, that “my way’s right.”

“I am — and always have been — the smartest one in the room.”

And the room could be teeming, busy as hell, but it matters not a whit who else is in it, you see.

A basic and pervasive lack of respect and a most profound lack of humility work in concert to feed this mindset.

Along with a kind of blindness and the twin inabilities or disinclinations, to listen; and to care.

My brother is a very poor listener.

He lacks humility.

And he doesn’t seem to care.

But why?

The $64,000 Question (1955).

Worth $621,442.39 in today’s dollars.

Not enough dough to get to the bottom of this.

He is quite intelligent and can be very kind, this brother of mine.

Growing up together — he’s five years my senior, but at our current ages, he’s reluctant to admit that — my brother was my idol.

I loved him then and I love him no less today.

I love my brother very much, and unconditionally.

In many ways we were — and still are — somewhat alike.

Which makes it all the more exasperating, bordering on infuriating — excruciating — that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why he’s acting on this death wish of his.

Nor can I stop him; trying to control another’s behavior is a fool’s errand.

It doesn’t work.

And nobody on the face of this earth — with due respect paid to his wife of nearly five decades and adult children — knows him as I do.

The way I do.

Nobody.

It would not be unreasonable to think that depression may play a part in all of this.

Our parents, though never clinically diagnosed, probably had, at least, traces of depression coursing through their bodies and minds.

And sometimes I can dip my toes into that vast and roiling sea of unhappiness, but I don’t like that water, so I get right out.

I will not swim in it, let alone drown in it.

I don’t wallow.

Never have.

Sure, I’m human, but positivity defines me; it is my being.

Whenever I feel the tides of doom rolling in and crashing toward me, I will not be taken down.

I simply won’t have it, and I won’t be party to it either.

But that’s me.

I am not him, and he is not me.

A lot of people suffer from varying strains and degrees of depression — technically there are six.

The root causes are well-documented, but each has its own DNA base.

It is personal. It is private. It is unique to the individual.

More universally embraced, is the desire to treat depression and ultimately control it.

(Glory be to God if it could be eradicated — cured).

As is the case with many, if not all psychosomatic illnesses or diseases, the first step toward treatment and possible cure, involves acknowledgement.

You gotta admit that something’s off, that you may have the makings of a problem here.

You must be honest with yourself.

This requires some soul-searching certainly, but more important is the capacity to demonstrate a willingness to check your ego at the door.

Ego can not be an issue.

Not easy for a self-centered person.

But why wouldn’t you want to help yourself?

Is it fear?

Self-loathing?

The reluctance to put in the work?

Is it because you’re human?

Or is it because you just don’t care?

Comparisons between siblings can be instructive, if not most revealing.

Sure there have been times in my life when I have shouldered the albatross of ambivalence and inhaled the noxious fumes of apathy.

I have stopped caring — perhaps out of feelings of disappointment — about certain things at certain times.

But only temporarily.

For a very short time.

Because that’s not me.

It is antithetical to my nature to not care, or to not try and do my best.

So after a brief “oh, poor me” interlude, I snap out of it and revert back to [my] form.

I fight it off, push it away and keep it at bay, with all my might.

I don’t see this in my brother.

Sadly, today he has neither the strength nor the will to adopt this posture.

But it’s nearly all mental.

[I would be remiss were I not to recall at this juncture, that famous quote from the maestro of malaprop, Yogi Berra, who once said, “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.”]

My brother doesn’t want it badly enough.

He has become lazy.

He simply doesn’t care.

The mystery is why?

He has everything to live for.

A wonderful family.

Four lovely grandchildren.

A beautiful home.

Brains.

Wherewithal.

Less than perfect health — which in the interest of full disclosure, he did little to augment and preserve over the years — has beleaguered him, to the point that it has him in a firm stranglehold.

When we were young, he was always hurt or injured, losing teeth or breaking bones.

And he was a very good natural athlete with an uncommon physical strength for one so slight and relatively small.

But somewhere along the way, deep inside, he must have felt that he just wasn’t good enough at whatever — perplexing, to say the least, as he was quite good at everything.

And it wasn’t only I who thought so.

My father harbored and buried this malignant feeling of self-doubt too.

Not my mother.

And certainly not I.

Quite to the contrary for me.

I somehow was always convinced that I was better than I probably was.

At everything.

Misplaced confidences perhaps, which I never allowed myself to consider misplaced or unreal, and which I sought to justify, by actions — not words — on a daily basis.

So which mode of thought is a more productive one, given this scenario?

A rhetorical question, yet still an interesting query for another time.

Life has a way of beating you down, if you let it.

It’s a long life if you’re lucky, but all the nicks along the way can morph into a debilitating ball of hurt, if fed and nourished.

The trick is not to let that happen.

Over the course of his life — through the years — my brother has slowly fallen victim to buckling under the strain, to succumbing, moving on the path to giving up.

An inner anger occasionally drives him off the rails, and on the outside at least, he doesn’t seem to care.

He must be made to care; it’s his only out.

His only way out.

If he realized a palpable measure of improvement in his overall physical condition, his health, he would see progress, and positive steps forward fuel motivation.

In turn, motivation can ensure greater progress and build positivity.

And positivity is everything; it boldly colors one’s outlook on life.

I am living, breathing proof of this philosophical verity.

Somehow, some way, we must inject a powerful and lasting dose of positivity into my brother’s veins, making a beeline to his soul, so he may experience its value and deep effect.

From there he will start to feel better, mentally and physically.

And then he’ll be on the way.

His way.

That dark notion of giving up, will recede into the bowels of the thought process, to be replaced by a bright and heightened sense of self-worth…and caring.

So, how do we do it?

Shrinks don’t seem to work for him, probably because he doesn’t listen.

He must be made to listen and to hear.

But that’s precisely the point.

External forces won’t get this done.

He must do this for himself.

He must want to do it.

Truly want it, and not be waylaid or denied.

He must kill the ego and look outside and beyond himself.

He must do the work.

Then, and only then, can something good happen.

I am torturing myself because I love my brother.

But this is not about me.

It starts with his thinking.

He, alone, has the power to change himself for the better.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in January 2020.]