Photo by Richard Yost/ Edited by John Fraim
In A Silent Way / Miles Davis
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John Fraim
A younger brother’s/sister’s ideology and perspective on life is opposite to his/her older sibling’s perspective. As Harvard professor Robert Putnam wrote in his famous book Born to Rebel, to assume younger siblings follow the path created by their older siblings is simply wrong. They would get little attention from their parents this way.
Rather, younger siblings desire attention from their parents. Attention away from their older siblings. The dynamics of all of this intensify in smaller mixes of siblings: two or three sibling mixes seem the most dynamic. Within these little solar systems of family dynamics, the most effective way to get this attention is not to provide a better version of one’s older sibling. (Somewhat like the extension of some movie franchise under the “big tent” of the overall brand)
The above growth pattern is not radical but incremental. Often, the best way of getting attention is to create something unexpected that tricks the mind out of the trance it floats through life these days. Unexpected presentations catch the mind off guard. (Not too difficult to do these days.)
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In the case of these two siblings, the younger was the opposite from the overall personality, persona, symbolism, being – or whatever you want to call it – from his/her older sibling. This opposition in the symbols of the two siblings will create dynamics with the parents. A more interesting family dynamic is created from the sibling differences than similarities between them. This dynamic contributes greatly to the overall family dynamic and overall growth of a family today.
This is certainly not meant to suggest that dynamics between siblings in a family is always a good thing. For example, there are the great sports families like the Mannings or the Williams sisters who followed similar paths.
But more often it is the dynamics between siblings in a family. Matched with the dynamics between the two parents … if two parents even present.
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A concept for a story based on the dynamics of a modern family.
We witness total opposition between the two siblings in the family.
Will a new global leader emerge from a situation like above dynamics. Out of a family? A relationship within a family? America became the fastest rising global leader in history because it was founded at the paradoxical intersection between the archetypes of masculine and feminine, freedom and equality. The only nation in history founded upon this paradoxical opposition of symbols.
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Does anyone today hold a modern vision for the nation – for ourselves – however hazy or distant? Or has such a vision never been imagined at all? It seems that it would have to be first imagined within one’s internal self before it can be imagined into the external world of an entire nation.
What type of story should this be?
If worth the telling of it in the first place.