There is a path that leads up to where we find ourselves now.

There is a reason why I keep books scattered around me. Suppose they weren’t there waiting for me after I wake up to the declaration of war that was handed me in the erection of what might as well be called a wall, yesterday, while I was out, to keep me out?

I have spent many tens of thousands of dollars, not earned here on Steemit or on Hive, impossibly earned on any honest social media platform (for why would people pay to hear eachother's drivel, let alone rejoice about something they themselves can’t have or wouldn’t know how to get?)

to make my garden look as nice as possible, taking two days to remove trees, shrubs, rotten sleepers, and ten metric tonnes of earth and another three to pave and plant, not to mention put up four mighty fine fences to please all my neighbours, meeting all their requirements as discussed throughout the year that stalled all operations.

Kapow!

I came home to receive a blow I never saw coming. My neighbours violated all our agreements, forgot about all our negotiations, failed to communicate a single word, and decided, in a flash, upon the move that would be restorative to their power: to tower over my lovely tidy view with their slipshod, improvised DIY job -that only goes part of the way, because a shrub was standing in the way.

Power restored: for I again do not want to look out of my window upon waking, cooking or sitting at my dining table.

I am upset

which I suppose I must forgive myself, for it marks the end of a fight I lost. The fight to let kindness and consideration win for once. The battle against the trembling ego, wobbling all over the place, afraid of the hungry ghosts and the angry demons. The struggle to put another first at the risk of starving oneself or being crushed

How most of us love the current emergency law to keep your distance and to claim your right to 400 cubic feet of boxy space instead of being jostled at the zebra crossing, in the lift, or in a queue.

There is nothing that upsets me more than ignorance, or it has to be negligence.

And that is what this fence war is all about.

The Lack.

Lackadaisical is a nice clickety-clack, cobblestone, bumpy cartwheel roll off the tongue. The etymological dictionary suggests it means “sentimentally woebegone”: more scumptious language, like choux, or a chocolate or mocca, or vanilla éclair filled with pastry cream or custard or chantilly, take your pick. I love free choice.

Who cares?

There is not a hair on my head that seeks to sort this in any oppositional manner. Let alone get my revenge in return. So now for the most tricky part: to forgive and forget. Brush it off. Let it be. Do the right thing.

In mildness love it better.

The Avengers to the rescue

The Lithuanian guy

So no counter from my part. I must bite my lip and refrain from comments in passing.
I must wear my darkest glasses to avoid casting an evil eye on the way to the rubbish container.

Yet, my son offers to pop by with his new Lithuanian friend, who may well think my boy is too friendly to be true. Might he be snidely running an exploitative delivery cartel? Why all the free advice? The hot tips? The loan of his bike even! And even the loan of some money. Now my son, with his autism, doesn’t bother to read intent and when asked will give. Or rather he is used to having such abundance of heart around him (me) that he imitates the gestures he has seen all his life. Yes, naïve. Yes, not very socially savy, perhaps, or not even with the compassionate intent you and I might have (he does much computing with the head instead). But there is plenty of spiritual uprightness supporting these simple acts of kind assistance, notwithstanding.

Worried about repo men, maybe this man who has fled corruption and organised crime in any job he seemed to apply for in Lithuania (or the money pit that is Ireland for that matter, which he left most recently), now phones my son regularly to assure him he is working on getting the cash together at top speed. My son must sound far too laid back in return, saying he'll see it when he sees it, or come for it instead of making him cycle for miles to hand it over, but not in installments, in one lump please, not in dribs and drabs, loose change etc (his life is chaotic enough already). I fancy this suggests to the (older) man maybe all the more that he is living on borrowed time.

The American way

My companion, an avid DIY man, about to get livid with the shoddy work when he returns from his own frontline days away from home for work, has also announced many brutal, swift vengeful tacks in response to my photos and general upset.

In his case, this response is a matter of having lived for decades in a system that sues at the drop of a hat. Plus, the small matter of having been run over by ten tonne trucks before, by the ones you are supposed to be able to trust and rely on: your neighbours, colleagues, bosses, protective authorities, mates, spouses, and family members since the age of two.

The Powerful Mind Is A Peaceful Mind

Confrontation in any form is not going to dissolve my crestfallen defeat.
Were it a case of laxity, then perhaps, my inquiries into their intent and arguments against their preferences in violation of mine, or my objections fueled by my disgruntlement with how they only think of themselves in all they ever do, which will never make a good neighbour, which will never consolidate into a good brother, which will never help make Man more resistant to viral attacks summoned precisely by the dark and hollow spots, the sha chi and si chi of our being, were it a case of “Alack, these folks are too loose in their morals and social duties”, then I could throw a book at them or wag a finger in their direction.

Alas, alas, I only too well can read how cramped everybody involved is. As if their Chucky heads have been stuck onto their bodies starched stiff with fear. Mannequins of society which has invented itself (including its media and governments). Puppets on strings of their own making allowing eachother to take turns as puppeteers. None of this is freedom-worthy.

The consequences of their actions will be wrathful enough without any of my re-actions. Sadly so, indeed, for bears with sore paws are dangerous to be around. Time to build a raft and find a safe spot lost out to sea perhaps? The sea of love.

This will all end badly for them, and to KNOW this reveals the root of my upset. I cannot hold it steady for them. There is no higher fence you can build when you are bleeding to death through your eyes. There are no personal vendettas you can fight when your vaccines don’t work and your children bleed out next.

My fences, my tiny little plot of land I like to garden, like my eeny-weeny life I like to poet, is just another painting for the Pinacoteca (Art Gallery) of who man is not. I can do nothing more than hang such mirrors on the wailing wall of our Generations Who Failed.

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Travel Tip, for when renewedly possible:

see photo at top: visit the new Vatican Pinacoteca