Camus wrote this in his early twenties, which makes it remarkable. Most of us do not start asking these questions until we have wasted years performing for an audience. He was already noticing the cost.

The cost is subtle. When you live in order to show off, you do not stop living. You may work just as hard, produce just as much, appear just as successful. But something shifts internally. Your attention moves from the thing itself to how the thing looks. You are no longer writing because you have something to say. You are writing because you want to be seen as someone who writes. The work becomes a prop.

Camus called this a betrayal, and the word is precise. You are betraying yourself, because the version of you that performs for approval is not the version that knows what is true. You cannot be honest and impressive at the same time. One will always compromise the other.

The path back is simple but uncomfortable. Stop asking how this looks. Start asking whether it is true. The gap between those two questions is the space where authenticity lives or dies.