When we see a picture of the siblings of celebrities, we instinctively think, ‘poor things’. What must it be like if your brother or sister were hugely famous and admired by millions? We think like this because we are instinctively aware of envy. We understand how having a famous brother or sister could make you feel deeply, thoroughly inadequate.
The comparison would be so humiliating and saddening. We’d constantly ask: why not me? We all know envy when it comes at us in sibling form, so we feel for them a lot. When the toys have been very unfairly or arbitrarily distributed, we must strive to be kinder to ourselves – in the same way we may look to the unsung sibling of Barack or Brad.
