The Audacity of Hope

Can hope—desire—be dangerous?

Qui cupiet, metuet quoque porro,
Qui metuens vivit, liber mihi non erit unquam.

[Who hath desires must ever fearful be;
Who lives in fear cannot be counted free.]

-Lactantius

Desire to gain portends the fear to loose. So does well-meant liberalism lead to a certain perverse conservatism: prisoners of of our ambition, of our acquisition.

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

-Tyler Durden, Fight Club