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.
Before I die many will die with me and they'll deserve it. See you in Hell.
He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.
Feelings come, and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the Word of God, naught else is worth believing.
To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
I don't have any problem understanding why people flunk out of college or quit their jobs or cheat on each other or break the law or spray-paint walls. A little bit outside of things is where some people feel each other. We do it to replace the frame of family. We do it to erase and remake our origins in their own images. To say, I too was here.
I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.
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