In a poem by Robert Frost called The Mending Wall, he recounts how a neighbor was building a wall of stone between their two properties and told him, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
There are many ways to look at this phrase. You can take the ironic view that Robert Frost did, in questioning if the man was walling out something, or perhaps actually walling something in. The neighbor seemed to take the view that having clear lines of separation reduce conflict.
Another interesting thought, and I will credit this to my daughter. A good high fence will keep you thinking your neighbors are good, because you will not see into the details of their lives to find out how messed up they are. The less you know, the more likely you are to continue believing that they are good people! So maybe that is why a good fence makes a good neighbor.
However, my thought this morning is along the lines that good fences help you to remain unique and to have enough differentiation to stand apart from others. Should we be striving to be like everyone else, to keep up with our neighbor? Perhaps it is better to have a good, high fence so that you do not have that influence and you can remain striving for your own greatness.
Being unique is hard work. The art of conformity is actually pretty easy, you simply need to be good at copying. However, being unique, standing out in a crowd, being a trail blazer is very hard work indeed. So I am looking at the Apple Farmer in Frosts’ poem a little differently today. Maybe the hard work he was putting in to make sure his Apple farm remained distinct, was indeed the right work to be doing.
Maybe the answer that Frost asks, Why do they make good neighbors? A good fence keeps us true to ourselves, helps us be focused on being different, unique, and individual. Allows us to remain separated enough so that we can put effort toward being different.
Well, perhaps there is not such thing as a good fence and building one is just down right rude, but it seems that Frost deliberately set the story to create this complex alternative meanings.
So for now, I will continue to work hard to build a good fence, and do my best to be unique and different.
Guy Reams (602)
