What is there to be afraid of?

What is worthy of our fear? Is Death? Surely not. He who lives will die, and such inevitability must be respected and known, yet not cause dread. No more fear taxes, since he who earns can scarce keep it all, can he, any more than he can take it with him? For what purpose would you keep it all? I grant you death and taxes should be avoided - where it's possible to do so with honesty and honour. But they are not worthy of our fear.

Maybe boredom is a more suitable object. To live an uninteresting life is both eminently possible and profoundly fearful. Don't you have a mind though, and doesn't it engender imagination? And is it beyond that imagination to find an action, project or enterprise that could engage you in some means of improving your own or your fellow's lot? Boredom is not worthy of fear, since it is easily remedied.

Yet I think there is an entity worthy of fear, fear true and cold. It is waste... the waste of human potential. Such waste inhabits every corner of life where ideas spring up and are swallowed, spontaneously springing to life and dying like fundamental particles separating and colliding undetectably in the depths of space. Waste of human potential is omnipresent. It occurs in places of learning, and places of work, in families and in churches, in friendships and in war. It steals not only from those whose potential is untapped but from their communities, their

 relationships and indeed all society.


Fear this waste. Yes. Fear it and fight it.