About two years ago, our neighbor Leroy died. A few months later his wife Carrie, facing progressive dementia, moved in with one of her daughters leaving a quiet shell of a house with no one around to share a greeting and passing thoughts about the weather.
Several months ago, Joe, divorced and middle-aged, bought the house and immediately staked six dogs out in the yard. Although they have a 50-gallon barrel for shelter, they are never allowed off their chains and are never handled with any affection or attention. Their role is, ostensibly, to guard the property by barking at anything that moves. And bark they do. Throughout the day and night. Loud and piercing. Joe bought this place because he was forced out of his former rental because of the dogs.
I’d like to be able to say that I take the noise in stride through meditation and a calm spirit of understanding, but I don’t. Especially at 2:17 a.m. when the cacophony has awoken me and I can’t seem to get back to a deep sleep for hours.
But rather than getting angry about something I can’t control, I’m trying to understand what makes people lose awareness of their actions and the impact they have on others. Living in close proximity to others does not necessarily cause one to think in terms of being a neighbor. A residence is a place to sleep and store the stuff of one’s life. Being a resident in a place implies no responsibility to anyone else’s needs. Being a neighbor implies there is some.
Without care, it’s easy to take a ‘resident’ mindset into every aspect of our lives, whether it’s the cubicle we work in or the traffic we’re driving in. Cutting people off or polluting their environment with our ‘noise’ gives a measure of control with an “I’m out for me!” attitude. But at what cost?
Charles