Among our neighbours there are those, I know, who worry and struggle to make ends meet. Among them also are those who have no such concerns; they have professional careers that pay them handsomely. Including those in the legal and medical profession, some of whom I've gotten to know fairly intimately over the years. We enjoy a firm, casual friendship that I am certain they value as much as I do.

It would never occur to me to mention their profession on a personal level. Which is to say, to probe for answers to vexing questions of a personal nature. To seek their professional advice. It is as much to respect their privacy and my relationship to them, as it is to avoid the inevitable: to be informed politely and with a certain distance that should I wish to call their office receptionist, she would be happy to make an appointment for me for consultation services.

This response is as much to preserve their privacy as it is to ensure the dignity of their professional alliance is upheld. They, on the other hand, occasionally proffer for my hearing their own personal travails, sometimes relating to their professional experiences. There is a certain delicacy of self-respecting and mutually beneficial matters of interest to both, open for discussion, and others which are not; a protocol inherent to the relationship.

Practitioners of either of those well-remunerated and -respected positions are ever short of the wherewithal to pursue their life interests, let alone pay for all the basic amenities and necessities of life. They guard their professional expertise for its value to them in providing them with living expenses in the manner to which they have become accustomed. And who can blame them? There is little doubt they sign on to a social contract where services are formally rendered to the indigent, or pro bono work is conducted for those unable to pay for services.

This was all brought to mind by an intimate of mine explaining to me recently of her chagrin and disappointment when she discovered that someone she had considered a friend had betrayed that certain code of ethics; believing that she had entree to the services of a family member on the basis of knowing another family member, and that complimentary blandishments would serve to entitle her to 'free' service from someone whose ability to pay her bills is dependent on earning her living.

She and her husband were proud of their daughter, middle-aged, a single mother, who had always been capable as a professional of earning a decent living for her family, before that particular job market crashed and their daughter joined the ranks of the unemployed. Though it represented a difficult burden for them they helped their daughter to avoid losing her home, providing the funding to pay her living expenses.

Deciding to launch her own business, the daughter set about doing just that; over time and through word of mouth and an Internet website finding her services in modest demand to the point where gradually she became capable of paying her bills on her own. There are months when work is slow to present itself and concerns about earning sufficient to live on loom large. As part of her reach-out to potential clients the daughter also operated a blog site where she would post her own researched articles on health, nutrition, and other related topics, free of access to any who find value in them, and many did; a large following attested to that.

Her daughter, in other words had attained a certain professional standing in an area that many people are interested in. But her income remained tenuous, and of great concern to her ability to continue attracting clients in numbers sufficient to grant her the relief of financial stability.

And then came the news that an acquaintance of long standing had emailed the daughter at her website, complimenting her on the scope of the information readily available to anyone interested in accessing it, without charge. The email narrowed its scope to the personal level of the writer's dilemma, mentioning her friendship with the daughter's mother, and asking for advice on how to proceed to solve her described dilemma.

The cardinal principle of one human being acknowledging and respecting that professional advice comes with a price tag enabling the holder of the information to earn a living, thoughtlessly shattered.