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.
As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
A man may be a Bah' in name only. If he is a Bah' in reality, his deeds and actions will be decisive proofs of it. What are the requirements? Love for mankind, sincerity toward all, reflecting the oneness of the world of humanity, philanthropy, becoming enkindled with the fire of the love of God, attainment to the knowledge of God and that which is conducive to human welfare.
I love to move like a mouse inside this puzzle for the body, balancing the wish to be lost with the need to be found.
He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.
Contemporaneous with the financial crisis we have an ecological crisis and a health crisis. They are intimately interlinked. We cannot convert much more of the earth into money, or much more of our health into money, before the basis of life itself is threatened.
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