Starvin Larry

The title of this article is an old proverb that I’ve heard my entire life. Having spent all of my life except the decade I spent in uniform, living in rural locations, I’ve understood the truth of it, at least on the surface, for most of the last four decades. It wasn’t until I really started thinking about the lessons of tribalism that I was raised with, while writing Forging The Hero, that I really started understanding the deeper meanings though, despite it unconsciously being a core tenet of the philosophy I’ve lived my life by.

Good fences make good neighbors is directly related to the cultural concepts of innangarth and utangarth that I discussed in Forging The Hero. It is critically relevant to building tribal, resilient communities, both for intra-tribal relationships, and for inter-tribal relations. It’s really a large part of the core of “building rapport” and “winning hearts…