{"id":11238,"date":"2025-07-26T17:32:58","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T21:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/ellen-basss-stunning-ode-to-the-courage-of-tenderness-as-an-antidote-to-helplessness-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T17:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T21:32:58","slug":"ellen-basss-stunning-ode-to-the-courage-of-tenderness-as-an-antidote-to-helplessness-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/ellen-basss-stunning-ode-to-the-courage-of-tenderness-as-an-antidote-to-helplessness-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Bass\u2019s Stunning Ode to the Courage of Tenderness as an Antidote to Helplessness \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

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By Maria Popova<\/h3>\n
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\"Kiss:<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no greater remedy for helplessness than helping someone else, no greater salve for sorrow than according gladness to another. What makes life livable despite the cruelties of chance \u2014 the accident, the wildfire, the random intracellular mutation \u2014 are these little acts of mercy, of tenderness, the small clear voice rising over the cacophony of the quarrelsome, over the complaint choir of the cynics, to insist again and again that the world is beautiful and full of kindness. <\/p>\n

It makes all the difference in a day, in a life, to hear that voice, all the more to be that voice. It is our evolutionary inheritance<\/a> \u2014 we are the story of survival of the tenderest, the living proof that tenderness<\/a> may be the ultimate fitness for being alive. <\/p>\n

I know no better homily on this fundament of our humanity than Ellen Bass\u2019s poem \u201cKiss\u201d from her altogether soul-salving collection Indigo<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n