The Waste of Human Potential

Every day, within the human world, there is the regrettable and apparently inexorable waste of human potential.  Every day, countless numbers of individuals die from the starvation not because there is a scarcity of food, but because they do not have access to the abundance that does exist.  Everyday large numbers of humans die from diseases and conditions that are preventable, treatable and, in some cases, curable, only because they lack the resources to gain access to the wondrous medical advances that exist in the larger world.  Every day, tens of millions of children are denied access to meaningful educational resources; the net effect of this reality is that these children will never realize the wondrous gifts that they possess.  Instead, they will be relegated to a future in which their primary behavior will be directed towards survival in a world that apparently rejects their possible contributions to the larger society.  Every day, millions upon millions of human beings are without a place of shelter to which they can retreat from the relentless onslaught of their daily lives.  Every day, the natural environment worsens as human societies continue to pursue reckless and short-sided policies that suggest a grim future for the species.

Contemporary humans are living a tragedy that is wholly preventable.  There is no legitimate reason why any individual cannot have access to all the necessities required for a meaningful life.  There is no reasonable explanation for the barbaric conditions in which so many live.  There is no rational discourse that can abide the miserable fate of so many of the human kind other than the belief that only a few of us are deserving and the rest are the castoffs in the pursuit of wealth and power.

The pathetic aspect of the human condition is that we can be the architects of a very different world – a world that can not only sustain human life, but also enrich the lives of all of us, everywhere.