I was first intro­duced to the eco­nomic concept of oppor­tun­ity cost as I sat through euchar­ist as a young chor­is­ter, listen­ing to a sec­tion of the liturgy that asked for­give­ness for “the good we have not done.”

The oppor­tun­ity cost of every moral act was “the good left undone.”

For Mark Twain the cost of writ­ing came at the expense of the opin­ions left unex­pressed. And, as being dead is no bar­rier to writ­ing for the New Yorker, you can read Twain’s essay in the 22 Decem­ber, 2008 edi­tion (abstract only).

His point is simple but endur­ing, that we are our own worst cen­sors: Con­tinue read­ing →