Poem, "In Fear of Defeat"

Would I like to have gone through my life without having known failure?  That whatever I did I did effortlessly well?

No.

That is a path to banality.  A world that glitters but is not really won, just given freely.

But what of failure and defeat?

It seems that they become the motivating factor, rather than the success.

Some-when in the past we stopped wanting success, and started to expect it.  Failure was not a possible outcome, but that thing that happened to lesser people.

If you did not win, you shouldn't have played to begin with.

So people stopped playing, and people stopped trying.

Because the only way to lose, is to play.

The only way to fail, is to try.

Hope was a path to disappointment.

And life was not a series of adventures, but instead a task of prolonging itself.

You avoid confrontation.

You don't think.

But you worry.

You fear.

You hide.

And everything slows down.

Turns gray.

And those who do not fear defeat go to war.

Sadly, those without fear, are stupid.