“A family is a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member.”

I think about this line all the time. First time I encountered it was in Act One, the autobiography by playwright Moss Hart:

I cannot remember who it was who said that a family was a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member–he certainly could not have known my grandfather–but it was some such symbol he must have had in mind when he made the remark.

Who’s the most dysfunctional person in your family? The bully, the addict, the hypochondriac, the control freak, the one with PTSD or some other illness. Or maybe you have your own unique flavor of “sick” in the mix. After all, as Tolstoy said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Consider how much of your family’s internal politics and day-to-day decisions revolve around that person. In effect, they rule the roost.

Or perhaps you’re covering up for that person and pretending [insert sickness here] can be ignored. “It’s not that bad.” That’s how you get through it. But of course, ignoring it just means the toxicity bubbles up in other ways. You can put your finger in the dike, but the water’s still gonna go somewhere.

Defining “family”

Originally, the “dictatorship” line seemed to me a statement on individual dysfunction. But as time has passed, I’ve come to see it as a reveal of what it means to be a family. The phrase isn’t about the sick person, it’s about how everyone else rallies around them and makes it work. It’s an acknowledgement of the relationship between family and friction. The obstacles are the point.

Within my family, it wasn’t tough to figure out our “dictator.” During my youth, my mother was diagnosed with a chronic disease and eventually lost her ability to walk. So she became the de facto chief of our clan.

When it was clear she would eventually wind up bedridden, she decided she wanted to live somewhere with a view. So my father and I flew across the country, to the north coast of California, and searched for a house with a scenic vista. Eventually, we found a ramshackle home overlooking the ocean on the north coast. It was falling apart, but it had what our leader craved: a room with a view.

There, from her bed, she was able to spend her final years watching Pacific waves crash while listening to the yelps of sea lions. We sold the sedan and bought a van that could transport her wheelchair to restaurants, coastal overlooks, and medical appointments. When she told me that, if she lived two more years, she wanted me to help her take her own life, I meekly agreed. Fine, I’ll figure out how to kill you. You’re the boss. She died of a stroke a year later – I felt saddened, but also relieved I wouldn’t have to enact some Kevorkianesque plot.

No man left behind

The military has a tough mission: To turn strangers into brothers. One way it accomplishes this is by building a culture where no one gets left behind. A basic pillar: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” (See: the Army’s Warrior Ethos.)

We often think soldiers fight for patriotic reasons; y’know, love of country, defend the homeland, and all that. But the truth is they fight for each other.

The bond formed among members of a squad or platoon is the single most important sustaining and motivating force for combat soldiers. Simply put, soldiers fight because of the other members of their small unit.

Soldiers are commanded to retrieve anyone wounded or trapped behind enemy lines, even if it means risking their own lives. Their refusal to leave a fallen comrade is what makes them a unit. A family is a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member.

The New Colossus

“Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” The Statue of Liberty offers up the promise that America will shelter the weak and aid the helpless. Nancy Pelosi once called this “a statement of values of our country.” Our states are united because we rally around those who need it most.

Well, at least in theory. These days it’s tough to follow that thread. After all, there are plenty of examples of America failing to live up to these values. In fact, that righteous depiction of America feels more like a myth than reality.

But myths have a purpose. They give us something to aspire toward. “The New Colossus” sonnet is America’s own “Don’t be evil” mission statement. It’s the sign on the wall we can point to and say, “This is what we stand for.” It may be BS, but it still carries weight. It shows us what we want to be.

Of course, we frequently fail to pull it off. Caring for the sick is hard and no family is perfect. We moan about, yell at, and try to cajole dysfunctional members – especially if it seems as if they’re, on some level, choosing their ill behavior. But since we can’t excommunicate them, we eventually grant them citizenship and offer them asylum. After all, they’re family.

“He's no good"

Years ago, TNT broadcaster Ernie Johnson’s family adopted a Romanian orphan with muscular dystrophy. When they first met their soon-to-be son, Michael, the nurse who handed him over said, "Don't take this boy, he's no good." Johnson talked about it in this moving presentation to the ‘Bama football team:

Listen to how Johnson talks about his (now deceased) son: “I see value in him.” “It teaches you how to have heart for others.” “Running away isn’t an option.” “Make somebody’s life better.”

When the sick member takes the familial reins (wittingly or not), it forces us to stop prioritizing ourselves. In a society dominated by competition, cooperation finally triumphs. It takes us out of the I-me-mine rat race and makes us navigate the maze together, as a unit.

Challenge as blessing

Family members often depict these sorts of challenges as a blessing. Maybe they’re just putting on a brave face, but it’s worth noting how much acts of kindness and strong family bonds are essential ingredients to leading a happy life. And research shows people who have strong family ties live the longest.

A family is a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member. On the surface, sounds like a pretty bum deal. Yet somehow it’s a path to happiness, longevity, and ego loss.

And sometimes the sick can be our greatest teachers. I think often about the grace with which my mother handled her disease. She never complained, never asked, “Why me?” She just kept fighting until she couldn’t move any longer. And then she immersed herself in Eastern philosophy, explaining, “My journey is now an inward one.” Her body couldn’t move, but her mind soldiered on.

It felt like her last lesson: Don’t shoot the second arrow.

The Buddhists say that any time we suffer misfortune, two arrows fly our way. The first arrow is the actual bad event, which can can, indeed, cause pain. The second arrow is the suffering. That's actually optional. The second arrow represents our reaction to the bad event. It's the manner in which we chose to respond emotionally.

Life throws awfulness at you. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you control your reaction to these negative events. Don’t shoot the second arrow. In retrospect, it was the final mandate of our benevolent dictator.

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Quickies

🎯 Are the bees okay now or did we just give up?

🎯 Could describe either Party Down or Succession: "A delusional and clueless crew keeps trying to level up in a different, wild location in every episode."

🎯 Hey tough guys, wtf ya doing drinking Bud Light in the first place? It's the La Croix of beer, ya schmos.

🎯 ESPN is currently a 24/7 Lebronologue.

🎯 Newsletter reader: “I was very impressed with the piece on the alpha male.” Me: “Thanks. I don't recall ‘the piece on the alpha male’ specifically. But maybe, in a way, everything I write is a piece about alpha males in the same way every portrait is a self-portrait.”

🎯 Obscurity is a gift. It provides liberation and encourages exploration. The shadowland is the best place to learn. And yet we all race to escape it ASAP.

🎯 “Likability is a prison.” Phew, you should try being unlikable.

Video production

The team behind Vooza (the video comic strip I produced for years) still creates fun promo/explainer videos for tech companies – and anyone else. Below is one about Zoom meetings we recently created for VMware (starring funny comic Grant Gordon). If you’d like to talk about having us produce a video for you, hit reply or shoot me an email: mattruby@hey.com.

Tech thoughts

💾 I don’t believe in to-do lists. If I really need to get it done, I’ll remember. And if I don’t remember, I probably didn’t really need to get it done.

💾 AI is the first time tech guys haven't guaranteed their new invention will make the world a better place. And that's after inventing a bunch of stuff that destroyed democracy, journalism, our mental health, etc. Can only imagine the potential hellscape on the horizon to make these eternal optimists say, “Um, maybe we should slow things down a wee bit?”

💾 Everyone’s hallucinating nowadays:

Maybe A.I. needs a trip sitter? Just blindfold it, put Enya on the stereo, and burn some palo santo.

💾 You can lead an influencer to water but you can’t make them think.

💾 Fun to watch so many crypto people try to switch to being AI people. "I was an expert on THAT but now I am an expert on THIS." Really oozes credibility. 🥸

💾 Uh oh, might be time to change my profile photo…

Comedy

😈 Check out my podcast: Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby.

😈 I post clips of my standup and more at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Here’s one about me seeing the NHL team name Seattle Kraken and thinking it said the Seattle Karen.

😈 Check out my other newsletter “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian” – recent posts there discuss the algorithm, touring, and why “I don’t like the way you are” is actually a good thing to hear.

😈 NYC: I’ve got two weekly shows that are always a blast… 1) HOT SOUP is Tuesdays at Comedy Cellar at 10:30pm. RSVP at ComedyCellar.com. 2) GOOD EGGS is Wednesdays at NY Comedy Club (East Village) at 8pm. Use code SCRAMBLED for $5 tix.

😈 Morris Plains, NJ: On May 12, I’ll be headlining the the Dojo Of Comedy. I will definitely “sweep the leg,” comedically speaking. Tickets here.

5-spotted

🗯 Concerned studio executives at Paramount called Mel Brooks after viewing a rough cut of “The Elephant Man” (produced by Brooks and directed by David Lynch) and told him the opening and closing shots were “too oblique.” His priceless reply:

“We showed you the cut because we are involved in a business deal and we wanted to bring you up to date on the progress of the product we’re working on,” he replied, defending Lynch’s vision. “Don’t misconstrue that as soliciting the input of raging primitives!”

🗯 Cheryl Strayed answers “What advice would you give your younger self?”

I always answer with some variation of what most people say: I’d tell myself it’s going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it now. I’d be more gentle and generous with myself.

But what I realize…even as I answer that question with such certainty, is that my younger self wouldn’t have taken a word of my older’s self’s advice. My younger self had to let all the wild animals rampage around inside of her before she could be the person who’d look back and say, It’s okay, honey bun! You’re doing great. She had to figure it out the only way she could. The hard way.

🗯 Tennessee Williams on the value of struggle.

But once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle you are equipped with the basic means of salvation. Once you know this is true, that the heart of man, his body and his brain, are forged in a white-hot furnace for the purpose of conflict (the struggle of creation) and that with the conflict removed, the man is a sword cutting daisies, that not privation but luxury is the wolf at the door and that the fangs of this wolf are all the little vanities and laxities that success is heir to--why, then with this knowledge you are at least in a position of knowing where the danger lies.

🗯 Ted Gioia offers a René Girard theory re: why Twitter sucks.

I believe René Girard’s theory of imitation and reciprocal violence explains a lot. In any cultural setting, people imitate each other, and on Twitter the successful role models are often the most toxic or outrageous, the least reasonable and most aggressive. This leads to endless shouting matches, where nothing is ever resolved, but insults and anger rule the day in a never-ending cycle—and thus generate the clicks Twitter needs to make money.

🗯 Ethan Strauss on Phil Jackson admitting to being turned off by the social justice messaging in that 2020 NBA bubble – and what is says about our age of reductive anger.

That this happened feels almost like an illustration of the era. A highly accomplished old man gives us hours of stories and it all gets reduced down to a soundbite, fashioned into fuel for angry sanctimony. The podcast itself is a gloriously immersive journey through the ages. The response is mostly lot of reductive anger, fit for our constant state of present shock. This includes the side that now sees Jackson as a hero for one stream of consciousness musing. Everyone reacts according to predetermined positions and almost nothing actually gets considered. And the podcast itself gives you a lot to consider.

Thanks for reading.

-Matt

P.S. Leave a comment or hit reply and tell me what you think. Unlike Mel Brooks, I ❤️ the input of raging primitives.