Free to Choose

We have a neighbour.  Nothing unusual there.  A lot of people do.  I have written about him before.  We call him the pyromaniac.  We can’t help but laugh.  We pray for our neighbours.  We do not know his name, so we call him the pyromaniac.
Lately he has taken to doing something else that has got me thinking.  Merril and I are of the opinion that for somethings occasional is fine (boy fine that is).  All day every day is a different matter.
In a place where I was, neighbours used to watch tv in their car port down the back.  Every night I could not but hear their tv.  If I had wanted to see those shows I would have been watching them.  As it was, I did not have a choice but to hear them every night.  They were lovely people, but I was not disappointed when they left.
 At another place I had a neighbour that would play music incredibly loudly.  I would play music which was playing about a meter from me.  I could not hear it because of the music from next door.  Someone going from door to door said they were glad they did not live next to that.  I told them it is not even that he plays his own music, but it is the radio.  From then on, the radio stopped, and he played his own music really loudly.  Again, that came to an end and I was not disappointed.
The fella over the back occasionally plays his music loud.  Merril says she feels most sorry for the old fella next to him as the wind tends to take the sound mostly that way.   Mostly that is.  It is loud and clear at our place.  I listen to my stuff with earphones on but when the music stops I hear the duff duff.
As I say he only does it rarely just like we make noise here rarely. Of course, now that we are getting older and 9 pm is the new 12pm it is never for long.  In fact, last year we had people over and decided to celebrate the arrival of the new year at 11pm as we wanted to go to bed.
What it got me thinking about was forcing a world view on others.  It is something I try very much to avoid.  I have had well meaning people try to do that and it really just turns me off.  If I am asked, I will share my world view, but I am not about to try and mandate it.
Someone visited one time and I had music playing in the background.  He told me he liked it and it reminded him of a band he liked and said I may like to check them out.  I did and I liked them.
Huge difference to me.  I choose.  I could investigate in my own time and make up my own mind.  That to me is what it is about.  Not being brow beaten into submission but being free to make up my own mind in my own time.
Fortunately for us we actually quiet like the music that is played.  Just as well really as we are not free to choose.