big fences/little yards

i look out the window from my bedroom and the first thing i see is a fence. i drive down the street and through the neighborhood and i see miles of boarded fence surrounding every home. i drive down the freeway and every plot of land is bordered off by fencing. the overwhelming majority of these fences reach higher than i am tall. the majority are made of boards of wood, laid next to each other so tightly that light can barely find a spot to squeeze through. you never see who, or what, is on the other side. and thats the point...

i understand the need for privacy, but sometimes i wonder if by surrounding ourselves with borders has done more harm than good. every home is divided from the ones next to it. every person hidden safely inside, keeping the world at the fence line. fences encourage, by default, avoidance and separation. generations of shutting out the world and hiding our lives behind a small forest of dead trees has made something so unnatural, natural. its the norm.

it must play into the reason why so many people thoughtlessly and selfishly support the idea of building a "wall". when exclusion and hiding, detaching from the truths outside, and separating ourselves from everyone else become the norm, of course building a wall on a much larger scale seems reasonable. but when the unnatural begins to feel natural, its time to wake the fuck up and find a way to ground yourself again. dividing who we are from who they are is the wrong thing to do. so dont fucking do it.