Tragedy

I have a confession, I cried like a baby when I saw the movie Million Dollar Baby. I actually saw the movie on a first date, and when the boy laughed at me, and didn't shed a tear either, I didn't give him the privilage of a second date. :)
But why did I cry, what was so tragic, and how can I explain it without giving the movie away to everybody else? What is tragic, essentiall, is the sacrifice of the innocent. This is tragic because of wasted potential. It doesn't matter how their life would turn out, they weren't given the opportunity to succeed or fail. Children who die before their parents leave an unfillable hole. The essence of tragedy is unfilled potential.
(This does not, by the way, help me when thinking retrospectively about my ski season)
Maybe in this way, sophoclese is right, life is the real tragedy because we all have potential and sometimes, maybe more often than we'd like to admit, we waste the gifts we were born with.