Quietly Shape A Day

Ring On A Landline

Show Up At A Funeral

Turn Space Into Place

neighbor

horse

dad joke

elevator

one-liner

person

collective noun

being literal

shadow

laundry

neighborliness

apartment

trivia

sprinkler

noise

listening to music

barking

curiosity

mowing the lawn

peeping Tom

bubble

Corona Virus

biological weapon

biological warfare

cheating (affair)

cemetery

neighborhood

real estate

real estate agent

optical illusion

sleep

going to bed early

arguing

bias

quarrelling

weekend

introvert

dog lover

dog owner

40s (age)

tree

hole

nosiness

Digging a hole

is a creature which at first appears perfectly harmless, but which, like some insect, penetrates into your brain hatches there and flourishes there devastatingly.

There exist a creature that is perfectly harmless... when it passes before your eyes, you hardly notice it and immediately forget it again. But as soon as it somehow, invisibly, gets into your ears, it begins to develop, it hatches, and cases have been known where it has penetrated into the brain and flourished there devastatingly, like the pneumococci in dogs which gain entrance through the nose. . . This creature is Your Neighbor. (Rilke in Zizek 'how to read lacan 38)

is a creature which seems perfectly harmless, but as soon as it somehow, invisibly, gets into your ears, it begins to develop, it hatches, and cases have been known where it has penetrated into the brain and flourished there devastatingly, like the pneumococci in dogs which gain entrance through the nose.

is he beneath whom lurks the unfathomable abyss of radical otherness, of a monstrous thing that cannot be domesticated.

The neighbor as the Thing means that, beneath the neighbor as my semblant, my mirror image, there always lurks the unfathomable abyss of radical Otherness, of a monstrous Thing that cannot be domesticated. (Zizek 2000 : 669)

is monstrous. He is the (evil) thing which potentially lurks beneath every homely human face.

What Levinas obfuscates is the monstrosity of the neighbor, monstrosity on account of which Lacan applies to the neighbor the term Thing (das Ding), used by Freud to designate the ultimate object of our desires in its unbearable intensity and impenetrability. One should hear in this term all the connotations of horror fiction: the neighbor is the (Evil) Thing which potentially lurks beneath every homely human face. (Zizek 'how to read lacan' : 37)

is not some mirror for one, offering self-realization through the other. Rather, the neighbor is an impenetrable, enigmatic presence that hystericizes me.

In contrast to the New Age attitude which ultimately reduces my neighbors to my mirror-images or to the means on the path of my self-realization (as is the case in the Jungian psychology in which other persons around me are ultimately reduced to the externalizations-projections of the disavowed aspects of my own personality), Judaism opens up a tradition in which an alien traumatic kernel forever persist in my neighbor the neighbor remains an inert, impenetrable, enigmatic presence that hystericizes me. (Zizek 'how to read lacan' : 37)

is one through which one define's oneself. If my neighbor is bad, then he is bad to himself, but good to me, for he brings my good temper 'into play'.

Is my neighbour bad' Bad to himself, but good to me: he brings my good temper, my gentleness into play. Is my father bad' Bad to himself, but good to me. This is the rod of Hermes... touch what you will with it, they say, and it becomes gold. Nay, but bring what you will and I will transmute it into Good. Bring sickness, bring death, bring poverty and reproach, bring trial for life all these things through the rod of Hermes shall be turned to profit. (epictetus 'sayings' : 60)

is one who is equal... he is neither the beloved, for whom you have passion's preference, nor your friend, for whom you have passion's preference.

The neighbor is one who is equal. The neighbor is neither the beloved, for whom you have passion's preference, nor your friend, for whom you have passion's preference.

is representative of one's incapacity for solitude, insofar as we run to our neighbor either looking for ourselves or to loose ourselves.

One man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to loose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison for you. Friedrich Nietzsche

neighbor, n.Memes

Keep exploring neighbor→

neighbor