RE: Confront thyself with thy neighbor.
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
In the US, when we had a house with a fence I never knew my neighbors - the infrastructure is set up in a way where you don't need to. Everything you need is solved with a call to the right authority, an amazon order, or friends coming over. We didn't have to ask anyone to watch our house - we had an alarm system. To borrow tools - there are tool rentals. The system was set up in a way that makes neighbors obsolete.
Now its a complete 180. We have every neighbors phone number and we often hang out or bump into each other in our small town. The neighborhood of a small town is bigger than that of the city. Our appliance guy, is two houses down. Our neighbors, we borrow their tools, we watch their property when they are away... if I smell something burning I can literally scream across the fence and get a response.
Neighborhood is a matter of necessity and cooperation.
The only time people can afford to diss their neighbors or otherize them, based on culture, race, political disagreements is because they are comfortable enough to no need them - because the necessities they have are met despite the neighbors.
I've always had this with my neighbors at both houses I've owned. Its lovely.
That's pretty awesome. In Germany it was very much like that, even more than here. Everybody knew everybody, we couldn't get away with anything as children, if only one person saw us, my mom or dad would know. That was before the new neighbors moved in, but with them, it's the same. Lily just goes over there whenever she wants, and their kids come over to my mom's place as well.
Probably helps my neighbours ARE German? :P
Of course! Germans are the best neighbors one can imagine. We have a long history of being the greatest neighbors in the world. Ask France... okay bad example. Poland? Worse. Austria! Hm... Switzerland, Germany never invaded Switzerland. Ask the Swiss.
Look, even lovers steal the blankets from each other.
Here it's similar, I know my direct neighbors and a lot of people in the small city. Can't know everyone, though many know me - being a German baker in Ecuador stills sticks out. When I greet people on the street I mostly use "Qué tal vecino!" as I don't remember the names, and here, everyone is called vecino :-D
About the needing and not needing - I think that's a trap. We always need our neighbors, maybe not in a material sense, but we do need them for the confrontation with the other, so we don't get stuck in our bubble. And there always comes a day when we do need some help, too.