Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket.
Interpretation
In a world overwhelmed by tragedy and horror, we must create spaces for kindness and fairness.
This quote reflects on the pervasive nature of suffering and absurdity in modern life, suggesting that as these experiences become normal, they can overshadow humanity's capacity for goodness. Boswell emphasizes the importance of intentionally creating environments where fairness and skill are valued, encouraging a collective effort to counteract the negativity that surrounds us.
In practice
In a discussion about the negative impact of the news, one might quote Boswell to emphasize the need for positive spaces.
Baseball has traditionally possessed a wonderful lack of seriousness. The game's best player, Babe Ruth, was a Rabelaisian fat man, and its most loved manager, Casey Stengel, spoke gibberish. In this lazy sport, only the pitcher pours sweat. Then he takes three days off.
Baseball is to our everyday experience what poetry often is to common speech — a slightly elevated and concentrated form.
Conversation is the blood of baseball. It flows through the game, an invigorating system of anecdotes. Ballplayers are tale tellers who have polished their malarkey and winnowed their wisdom for years.
He [Zampano] probably would of insisted on corrections and edits, he was his own harshest critic, but I've come to believe errors, especially written errors, are often the only markers left by a solitary life: to sacrifice them is to lose the angels of personality, the riddle of a soul. In this case a very old soul. A very old riddle.
Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.
Sometime I’ll lay down my wrath, As I lay my body down Between the ache of breath and breath, Golden slumber in the bone.
. . . the weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well.
The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just that time when God can't give it: you are like the drowning man who can't be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.
There is nothing respecting which a man may be so long unconscious as of the extent and strength of his prejudices.
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