My Brother John

My parents aside, there's no individual I owe more to in my personal intellectual and ethical development than my odler brother, John. From my earliest memories, he took a proactive role in teaching me: the basics of grammar and spelling, mathematics, and above all, the natural world. He read Ranger Rick as a boy, and knew the flora and fauna of the hilly, deciduous woodlands of Upstate New York where we grew up. He had a knack for finding Indian arrowheads, for cracking open rocks to reveal fossils, for trapping rare butterflies. He took me along with him, never treating me like the tagalong that I was.

He taught me my respect for science. He taught me the scientific method--not the simple version we learned in school, but the epistemology behind it, the skepticism that must pervade it. He was always a big thinker: while still barely into our teens, he would hold forth on theories that later took root in the works of sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, about the ways that human behavior has evolved, bound up intimately in our very biological being.

I thought of him just now because he posted a comment on a recent blog entry about my time in Austin. "Bro, you have to check out the bats," he said.  The Bats. Couldn't find a band by that name among the hundreds playing here. So I pinged him again, and he sent me this link. Oh--real bats. Pity I'm not going to have the time to see them.

John taught me a love of books, and though our literary tastes have diverged--he's still an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader, while I rarely touch the stuff--he still points me to excellent science writing, concerned to this day that my liberal arts background is a handicap to understanding the realities underpinning our universe.

Of the four siblings In my family, John is easiily the most Confucian in character: scholarly, fierecely familial, ethical. Filial too--though in his own way, and my parents might not see it that way. Ironically, he's the one who's probably least interested in China--in actually living in China, at least.  For that reason, we've fallen somewhat out of touch. I understand: he has a wife and three daughters, a busy job at a software startup in Northern California. But you don't know how I'd value some quality time alone with him, for one of those talks like we used to have lying there at night in the room we shared.

Comments

[Chris O'Brien]

Kaiser:

I was there for some of those nature expeditions, with your brother J.J. too. They were great fun. I was by Tioga Hills on business last year, and checked it all out 30 years later - a lot of its gone to development, but some of its still there.

Chris O'Brien :)

[Kaiser Kuo]

For anyone reading this, the above commenter, Chris O'Brien, was a year above me and a year below John in grade school, and it's impossible for me to imagine what he could possibly look like now. When we were kids he had a whacky and wonderful imagination. I remember we were in third or fourth grade and he made a bizarre elixir made of orange peels, eau de cologne, various mashed flower petals, and other unknown ingredients. He called it "Essence of Wombie." It's a cherished memory.

[Chris O'Brien]

Ha! Yes go ahead and laugh smart guy, I would have made millions if I had just worked out a good marketing scheme! And don't even get me started on my idea for Glow In The Dark Neon Schnapps.
Oh and (forgive me Kai)for those of you who wonder what Kaiser was like at 10 or 11, his knowledge of Star Trek trivia dwarfed Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. Kaiser also invented a game where we built lego spacships and threw ball bearings at each others ships from across the floor of his basement. His were indestructable and to this day it vexes me. I shall have vengeance at some point.

[Kaiser Kuo]

Nerdy as charged. I worshipped Spock. But I actually didn't invent the ball bearing/Lego spaceship game: that was all John. His ships were elegant and fragile, but hard to hit because they presented a narrow target. I tended to build blocky monstrous vessels, and the Legos would crack sooner than they'd come apart. Chris, great to get back in touch! Gonna Amazon your book.