I had a great thought today

And found out that I had plagiarized from a play I have never read.

The thought was about moderation, and how I don't love that particular rule because it can lead to some social problems I find common in literature I read, and so I thought, "The reason I don't like the rule of everything in moderation is because even this rule needs to be moderate.  We need the rule of moderation in moderation."

Less than an hour later, I find this in an internet article comment:

"Somewhere in Greek myth or drama, there's a scene between Artemis & Apollo that goes something like this:

Artemis: Brother, you are always going on about "everything in moderation", but very time I turn around, you're chasing a nymph around my forests! What's the deal?

Apollo: Dear sister, there must indeed be everything in moderation… including moderation."

There is a great ancient quote that I can only vaguely remember, and it goes something like:

"If anything great is written, it was first written by me."

Le sigh.

TOW: A Good Neighbour

"And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Matthew 22:38-40
You know, I have had the chance to think about community a lot this week and weekend.  November has been a month for meeting new people, for reconnecting with old friends, and just thinking about the kind of people I want in my life in the future.  Recently, I have had the good fortune to meet a lot of great people in the neighbourhood where I live.  And it brings me back to think about something that has been missing from my life for a while now, and which, I never realized other people my age and older wanted.  Which was a sense of community.

I'm a little tired from the long day...but it was nice to connect with a couple people who lived in my building....and it was good to think of the future...and to think there would be good people in it. 

I have been spending a lot of time looking for volunteer opportunities which match my desires to do good for those around me.  But what I suppose I realized this evening is that there are opportunities to do good everywhere, and that people used to have communities before they had charities.  Charities only exist because communities fail, or don't exist at all.

Our neighbour is not a stranger; our nieghbour is someone who needs us, and needs us intimately.  Life is very hard as it is, and living only in a relation of one-to-one, in a relation of what I want and getting it...that's not a life.

In the coming days, I hope that I can be a good neighbour to those in the sense that I belong, and I make an effort to belong to something and somewhere, while still being myself.