Neighbour

A neighbour is a person that lives close, could even be adjacent, to where I live. And there is scale to this word. My neighbor could be a fellow Canadian, or someone from the next country or a fellow human on this planet and even on the adjacent planet Mars. Depends on how we are using the word. The concept is that we share ‘place’. We have neighbouring cities and provinces and mountains too

The neighbourhood is the ‘place’ where neighbours reside and commune. Sometimes folks can refer to the neighbourhood as simply ‘the hood’, meant to be more personal somehow. What’s happening in the hood?, is a question we might ask about the folks back home, where we grew up for instance. The neighbourhood is where we feel we know what is going on, feel more safe than elsewhere

To be neighbourly is to be helpful, kind, thoughtful, good natured, generous, friendly and more stuff like these. Let us be clear though, proximity of others does not automatically make them neighbourly. Actually, now that I think of it, some people are just downright ornery, not neighbourly in the least. That brings us to choice. I can be neighbourly if I chose to be and a grumpy grouch if I choose that. Which are you?

Some neighbours talk to each other. Some neighbours talk about each other. They make TV shows about that latter group. The former group includes members of the community clubs, volunteers and those who will stop and chat as they go by on the sidewalk. They will also keep an eye out for suspicious goings on for us. In Tribal lore, it is the first group that made up the Tribes that survived and thrived

Awakening the neighbour within is a conscious deliberate choice. The idea posits that we have the neighbour gene and also that it can be suppressed or nurtured. In ancient times survival was in large measure dependent on group co-operation and that meant the tribe counted on every member to act in a neighbourly way. That attitude was incorporated into the survival of the fittest. How are we doing today?