What makes a good neighbor?

I was inspired (not in a good way to write a tanka series on the lack of community and neighbors our society seems dominated by these days. Yesterday is a perfect example of selfish people and their cluelessness.

At the grocery store this woman essentially raced me to the register so she could go first with her grocery cart nearly full, and me with my eight items. She didn’t even look at me or conceive at offering me to go first with my few items. Something I often do for others when I have a lot of groceries.

Then on my way home I decided to grab a hamburger to go. Just before the driveway, a man two lanes over makes a left turn (rather than lane change) in front of me 500 feet before the light forcing me to brake. I miss the driveway and had to make two lefts at two lights to go where I needed to. I even recall him motioning with his hand as if to swat me out of his way like I was a common housefly.

The coup de gras were my very unneighborly neighbors that live in the apartment above me. The same ones who: blast their subwoofer’s at all hours with either bass forward music or explosions from movies, enjoy the occasional 2:00 am argument they have, stomp about as if to step as hard and loud as possible, make noise sliding chairs dropping objects (with huge thuds), and are often hammering nails into the wall it seems. For an encore, until at least 1:30 am last night, a drunken stoned chorus of girls singing at the top of their lungs, and dancing and clamoring about. I did what I could to cover it up, closing my window, cranking up my fan, and my television.

Loving Thy Self Not Thy Neighbor 

The age of selfish 

Everyone wants their own thing 

Such a disregard 

For anyone else around

Swelling with narcissism.

–

Where are our neighbors?

Busy fulfilling themselves 

With tunnel vision

Not a single care to give 

Save their own best interests.

–

They will cut you off

On the highways and byways

Or in the store lines 

Without a trickle of care 

Lest their sole dreams and desires.

–

When did it all change?

Covid did play a big role 

We became hermits 

Then people forgot to care

About their community.

–

If things do not change

We’re doomed in a new dark age

Of such carelessness 

And egregious selfishness 

That it hurts and hinders hope…

-AAA 10/15/2024