today i woke to the sound of my focus-challenged, seventeen-year-old brother, and my 43 year-old mother fighting because she didn't wake him up in time for school. my brother, who has been through four high schools, for various reasons, many of which i believe to be fiction, has once again accumulated more than nine (9) absences in the better half of his classes this semester. meanwhile, in a not-so-distant corner of the house, where i was coming out of a dream where i was supposedly some kind of motorcycle pro who has just come out of a coma and is getting back into his training regiment, hear the sound of an adolescent boy's whine reverberating off the freshly de-carpeted wooden floor of the house, down the hall, and into my dreaming head. five years ago i would have screamed back. today i just opened my eyes to the sun coming through my bare windows and listened. i felt for my smokes, which are never farther than an arm's length from me at all times. i pulled one out, lit it, and took a drag that would have knocked me down if i hadn't already been in my bed, and when i exhaled it did that thing where all the spinning smoke is automatically highlighted when it reaches the rays of the sun, contrasted to the shadow where the sun doesn't reach. i listened to a little bit more of the conversation as i finished the cigarette, yells and stomping feet…"it's all your fault, and now i'm gonna hafta take those classes overr!"…"NO, whose the one who had all of those absences to begin with?!"…"well i was gonna go the rest of the year…why didn't you wake me up??"…"you're seventeen years old, can't you set your alarm?"…yada yada. it's funny, but not so funny. i mean, i've known for a while that my brother has been fucking his life up. and as i lie there smoking, i thought to myself, "oh, eric. if you only knew how hard you're making this on yourself". and it's too late. we've done everything for him, from helping him, offering to help him, offered counseling, fought with teachers to keep him, changed schools to get a fresh start, tried medication. he spends a lot of time on his car. more than a healthy amount of time sanding, inhaling fumes, painting, ripping this out, welding that. he's pretty good at it. the trouble i had lying in bed there, listening to the fighting, was my belief systems. i'm not quite a fan of our economy, our political system, capitalism, the american dream. sure, we all dream about stuff. we all have dreamt about being a great (fill in the blank). and it has us chasing these things without heart, recklessly. not just things, but status and power, too. and on countless occasions, i don't know how many (but probably far too many), i have sat my brother down and tried to get his goals out of him, push him towards something, to use his brain. to focus. to set the bar high. but as i look back, i wonder why i should put any more effort into it. why should i have him chasing these things? if he finds happiness in simple things, like working on cars, so be it. if he achieves that, then that's more than i can say i've accomplished. why should i give advice to someone who doesn't want it? in addition, why should i, the giver of that advice, say anything at all when i could use some counseling myself? so i continued about my day in the normal fashion. smoked a lot of cigarettes, did as minimal as possible. i sat in my car an hour for the warmth and the silence, clearing my head of all the trials my head fabricates, trying to dissolve fears, narcissism, clutter. i dressed up to go no where. i looked at myself in the mirror, "i'm ugly, i'm pretty, i'm ugly, i'm pretty…","…my mother was a real woman and my father a real man, what am i?" i cannot go back to working mindless jobs. i can't stand to work with one more person who's about as bright as a fork in a microwave. then i think, "goddamn, that's such a mean thing to say. what's wrong with manual labor and finding enjoyment, maybe even enlightenment in it?" thus i teeter, back and forth in my thoughts, only becoming clear when i force meditation upon myself. can it balance? i think that i'm great, then i think i'm worthless. i wonder how much is indoctrination. how many of my dreams are prescribed by this place in which i live, how many aren't complete fabrications. what won't i accomplish by my lack of commitment to anything or anyone? what will i accomplish by wanting to do everything, be everywhere at once, and be everything to everyone? absolutely nothing. but will i die happy? i'm still working on that.