The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ”— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754Theme Thursday has arrived and I think it is a great time for me to jump back into the blog scene…and how easy is it but to just recycle an old post from an old blog…I have been gathering a lot of photos of fences and after perusing them a time or two it has become clear that for the most part they have the purpose of keeping things out or in an area…but that is not all… Sometimes they are for the protection of things like cows or other animals
…even trees.
Other times they are for showing the world your private holdings…and usually come with warnings to keep out or no trespassing.
or they just show you the consequences of trespassing without using any words at all…
Some fences are installed to protect you and others from dangerous situations like a rushing river or a high cliff or a river rushing off a high cliff.
They can be made from all kinds of materials. Some are very decorative.
Some are just wire…but barbed to make one a little bit more careful when trying to evade or invade.
Some aren’t even upright but rather inserted in the ground to make it easy for cars and machinery to get in or out but also keeping the cows in.
Fences like most things can take a lot of work to maintain…
so it seems that some people find other material they find here and there…which save a whole lot of moola and maybe more importantly free up time for other things.
And then there are the other fences that are invisible but keep others out or things in just the same and these are the fences of misunderstandings, fear, anger, careless words and just not minding one’s business or even jumping to conclusions. Like the fancy well maintained fences… it seems these activities take a lot of effort in keeping them up…being angry or fearful just takes energy away from being at peace and happy.And the funny thing is that not minding one’s business or speaking careless words or jumping to conclusions can very quickly erect fences it takes a lot of time to take them down.
