LETTER TO THE EDITOR: To find peace, we must let go of fear

Sitting here marinating on this thing we call life, and this thought keeps gnawing at my soul. We shall never be able to live in peace with one another until we lose the fear of each other. Within the past 150 years we have gone from traveling via horse and foot to the ability of traveling more than 500 miles in a day in our aluminum wagons. And with the invention of airplanes and the Internet, we can travel the world in a day with everyone being just a tweet away.

Once upon a time, we only knew a few people that looked like ourselves, with many of them being kin. Now, we know of billions of people that are all distinct in their own special snowflake kind of way. So, until we learn how to live with people different from "us," we shall always have fear of "them." And as we live in fear we will continue to have conflicts. We must understand 'one love' for all and then maybe we can evolve the scared animal out of its den.

Kenneth Dale Welty is a Columbia resident.